Amid all the excitement over the abortion debates currently going on in the US, a tribute to a child born too soon was posted on the blogosphere. Please note that this is not an easy post to read, and the photographs (posted after the story) might disturb you. The author went into preterm labour at 19 weeks and 3 days, which gave her son no chance at survival. Had she gone into labour 4 days later, she still would have lost her baby, but she would have received a very different level of treatment, all because of hospital policy.
While the author of the post, Lexi, is open that she is against abortion and that's why she shared her story, that's not what this is about for me. In philosophy, I am also pro-life, but politically I am pro-choice, and that is because I cannot, in all conscience, push my morals on another person when it can have such potentially devastating consequences for their lives. I have posted on this before, relating to IVF and our freedom of choice within that procedure.
I could not imagine choosing to abort a pregnancy after implantation. But I also can't imagine enduring the physical, emotional and financial burden of pregnancy, when I have good reason not to do so and when my ethics don't conflict with ending it. And so I am happy, eager, for abortions to remain legal, although I wish there was as much attention paid to ways of reducing unwanted pregnancies from ever occurring (including education of the male sex) and of providing physical, emotional and financial support to women who need it through pregnancy and beyond.
That said, I urge everybody who is clamouring that abortions are a women's rights issue to remember that women's rights go further than one law can uphold, and Lexi's story is a good example of that. Forcing a woman through pregnancy is infringing on her rights. Denying that her child was alive, and denying her the proper consolation is also infringing on her rights.
Everybody has different beliefs about when life begins. If you believe it begins at conception, you might need to grieve for a lost embryo during IVF. A woman who has experienced joy after a positive pregnancy test will experience bereavement with a miscarriage, however brief her pregnancy may have been. Women who deliver a stillborn child or one that dies shortly after birth are encouraged to hold their baby's body and have pictures, handprints and footprints taken, so that they have mementos of their son or daughter's existence, something to mark them always as part of their family.
Denying any of these women (and their families) these options to grieve is inhumane. Impairing their medical care (and with respect to the linked blog, we obviously don't know the full details or the hospital's side in that case) is unforgivable.
I don't know if we can really pass enough laws to cover every aspect of pregnancy ethics. However, as people, and especially as an internet (where it is so easy to charge our statements with politics), we can strive to be more aware. It's not as simple as cheering for the politically correct option or damning those who argue against our beliefs. If you're pro-life, bear in mind that pro-choicers love their unborn children too. If you're pro-choice, remember that abortion isn't the only way in which wombs get regulated. Blindly mandating that life doesn't begin until birth/viability is also going to cause trauma and ethical issues.
No woman should be left waiting in an ER because the child in danger is not yet at 20 weeks gestation; no woman should feel that the child she carried, dreamed of and lost is not a person to be remembered.
In an ideal world, laws would give us the freedom to follow our own moral standards. That might not be possible in reality, but we have the power to exercise that moral tolerance on an individual level. Let's remember to do so.
Saturday, 29 June 2013
Thursday, 6 June 2013
Pre-school Decisions
So as I stated in my last post, we've made the decision to change schools. This wasn't an easy decision, because there are many things we (and they!) love about their current school, but in the end, our reasons for leaving were non-negotiable.
However, I was adamant that we were staying in Montessori education, so I asked around and got a recommendation for another school from somebody who had worked there as part of their training. I visited it, loved it, and fortunately, that decision was a very easy one. It's twenty minutes away instead of two minutes away, but I always knew I wasn't going to find another school so close. I'm just going to have to make that adjustment. (I am very unenthusiastic about the school run taking the better part of an hour instead of its current ten minutes.)
Complication number one was that they don't take toddlers. They aren't licensed to change diapers or even help a child undress and clean themselves after an accident. All children must be potty-trained with no more than two accidents per month. While it's possible that my daughter might be at that level by September (though I doubt it), I certainly don't think she's ready to tackle the full-blown children's house class yet (three to six year olds).
We pondered our options, of putting her in daycare or just taking her out of school altogether until January. In the end however, we have decided to let her continue on at her current school, for one more term. Come January, though she won't quite be three, she'll have done a full year in the toddler class, and I expect she'll be fine for Children's House, though we can revise our options again when we get there. (I am fairly sure her current school would change her to the full year if we asked.) Right now, she's perfectly happy where she is, and I don't see the need to change her routine for a single term.
Complication number two was an odd one. The new school wanted my son to start on their kindergarten programme.
To Push or not to Push
Just for background here, my son is four and a half. Going on the national standard, he would not have been expected to start kindergarten until the fall of 2014, so this is effectively skipping him a year. Kindergarten hadn't even been on our radar.
On the other hand, the Montessori system doesn't synch perfectly with the standard one--that's why it's a kindergarten programme, not a kindergarten class. By morning, he will be in the same 3-6 year old mixed class that we intended to enroll him for. The difference is that the older children stay through the afternoon as well and have a second, academic-focused, work cycle after lunch (plus some other opportunities).
Now, while I naturally think my son is extremely bright, I don't think he's any sort of child prodigy. The old school had not talked about starting him on kindergarten this early (although they tended to err later rather than sooner with such things). My initial reaction on hearing this news was that I did not want to push him. It wasn't that I thought he wasn't capable of handling the work so much as the load.
His prospective teacher admitted that he was younger than she had originally thought--probably because he was friends with one of the boys in her class. Said friend is only a few months older than my son, but he has an August birthday. I had never really appreciated before that, technically, they were in different school years, even if there's not a big difference between them academically.
For Montessori purposes, they are in the same class and will be doing the same work--the friend is a little ahead of my son in most areas, but they could certainly work together on several materials. And when my son came in to work with the teacher, she felt he was where she expected her kindergarteners to be.
I did wonder if it would make more sense to start kindergarten in January, when my son would be five and would have completed two of the expected three years in the Children's House. This would let him settle in to the new school before making the switch to afternoons as well. However, when asked, my son (who was utterly dazzled by his new school) was quite excited at the prospect of staying at school through the afternoon. I think he's aware that this is a big kid thing, and is eager to be so grand.
The teacher said that he could start the extended day in January if I wished, but she thought he was ready now. She also assured me that if she changed her mind after a few weeks, he would be able to switch back to mornings only. Finally, she told me that the school had a number of four year olds in the kindergarten programme, so he would be with his peers.
That last was what decided me. I feared being a pushy parent, but even if he was exceptionally gifted, I would want him to stay with children his own age as much as possible. I was also a little wary that the school might just be trying to get him in the more expensive programme to get the extra tuition fees, and obviously I can't be sure that this isn't the case... but I don't think it is.
Finally, whenever we do go back to the UK, his education is going to be interrupted for a short while anyway, so I'm more than happy to have him a little ahead of the curve. It feels like we have a buffer against future problems.
I do feel a little ridiculous saying he's starting kindergarten in the fall, but I need to get over it. This is going to be nothing compared to university applications.
Logistics, Ahoy!
Having him stay at school until 3pm will completely change our daily routine though. Up until now, our afternoon plans have hinged on when his sister wakes from her nap. Now they'll start from when we pick him up and they'll have to be accessible from his school. We're not going to be able to keep their gym class up, for a start, and I don't yet know if we'll change classes or change gyms. Fortunately, we don't do any other extra-curriculars.
Of course, this is only going to get worse in January when my daughter starts at the school as well. It's going to be one thing driving ten blocks to pick her up from school at lunchtime and then going back out for her brother at three. It's going to be quite another to spend forty minutes on the round trip to drop them off by 9, forty minutes to collect her at 12 and forty minutes to collect him at 3.
The most convenient option is to have her lunch and nap at school, so I'm picking them both up together, but that's a lot of extra fees for her to sleep through. Also, I don't think there's any alternative should she drop her nap. In other words, the nap will be enforced on her whether she needs it or not, which could create a different set of problems for us in the evenings.
Anyway, we are very much crossing that bridge when we come to it. Thankfully, it's going to be a relatively short term problem, but it's going to be a royal nuisance as long as it lasts.
Also a problem? Finding a week's worth of packed lunches for my son when peanut butter sandwiches are banned. It's not a huge surprise, since most schools don't allow peanut butter these days, but his current school doesn't have a problem with it, and they're just about his favourite thing to eat. I am going to need some serious research on packable meals before September rolls around.
But right now, I'm trying to deal with the thought that tomorrow is his last day at the old school--something which is giving me many more pangs than it is him. I really need to take a leaf out of his book and be excited about what's to come rather than mourning what will never be again.
However, I was adamant that we were staying in Montessori education, so I asked around and got a recommendation for another school from somebody who had worked there as part of their training. I visited it, loved it, and fortunately, that decision was a very easy one. It's twenty minutes away instead of two minutes away, but I always knew I wasn't going to find another school so close. I'm just going to have to make that adjustment. (I am very unenthusiastic about the school run taking the better part of an hour instead of its current ten minutes.)
Complication number one was that they don't take toddlers. They aren't licensed to change diapers or even help a child undress and clean themselves after an accident. All children must be potty-trained with no more than two accidents per month. While it's possible that my daughter might be at that level by September (though I doubt it), I certainly don't think she's ready to tackle the full-blown children's house class yet (three to six year olds).
We pondered our options, of putting her in daycare or just taking her out of school altogether until January. In the end however, we have decided to let her continue on at her current school, for one more term. Come January, though she won't quite be three, she'll have done a full year in the toddler class, and I expect she'll be fine for Children's House, though we can revise our options again when we get there. (I am fairly sure her current school would change her to the full year if we asked.) Right now, she's perfectly happy where she is, and I don't see the need to change her routine for a single term.
Complication number two was an odd one. The new school wanted my son to start on their kindergarten programme.
To Push or not to Push
Just for background here, my son is four and a half. Going on the national standard, he would not have been expected to start kindergarten until the fall of 2014, so this is effectively skipping him a year. Kindergarten hadn't even been on our radar.
On the other hand, the Montessori system doesn't synch perfectly with the standard one--that's why it's a kindergarten programme, not a kindergarten class. By morning, he will be in the same 3-6 year old mixed class that we intended to enroll him for. The difference is that the older children stay through the afternoon as well and have a second, academic-focused, work cycle after lunch (plus some other opportunities).
Now, while I naturally think my son is extremely bright, I don't think he's any sort of child prodigy. The old school had not talked about starting him on kindergarten this early (although they tended to err later rather than sooner with such things). My initial reaction on hearing this news was that I did not want to push him. It wasn't that I thought he wasn't capable of handling the work so much as the load.
His prospective teacher admitted that he was younger than she had originally thought--probably because he was friends with one of the boys in her class. Said friend is only a few months older than my son, but he has an August birthday. I had never really appreciated before that, technically, they were in different school years, even if there's not a big difference between them academically.
For Montessori purposes, they are in the same class and will be doing the same work--the friend is a little ahead of my son in most areas, but they could certainly work together on several materials. And when my son came in to work with the teacher, she felt he was where she expected her kindergarteners to be.
I did wonder if it would make more sense to start kindergarten in January, when my son would be five and would have completed two of the expected three years in the Children's House. This would let him settle in to the new school before making the switch to afternoons as well. However, when asked, my son (who was utterly dazzled by his new school) was quite excited at the prospect of staying at school through the afternoon. I think he's aware that this is a big kid thing, and is eager to be so grand.
The teacher said that he could start the extended day in January if I wished, but she thought he was ready now. She also assured me that if she changed her mind after a few weeks, he would be able to switch back to mornings only. Finally, she told me that the school had a number of four year olds in the kindergarten programme, so he would be with his peers.
That last was what decided me. I feared being a pushy parent, but even if he was exceptionally gifted, I would want him to stay with children his own age as much as possible. I was also a little wary that the school might just be trying to get him in the more expensive programme to get the extra tuition fees, and obviously I can't be sure that this isn't the case... but I don't think it is.
Finally, whenever we do go back to the UK, his education is going to be interrupted for a short while anyway, so I'm more than happy to have him a little ahead of the curve. It feels like we have a buffer against future problems.
I do feel a little ridiculous saying he's starting kindergarten in the fall, but I need to get over it. This is going to be nothing compared to university applications.
Logistics, Ahoy!
Having him stay at school until 3pm will completely change our daily routine though. Up until now, our afternoon plans have hinged on when his sister wakes from her nap. Now they'll start from when we pick him up and they'll have to be accessible from his school. We're not going to be able to keep their gym class up, for a start, and I don't yet know if we'll change classes or change gyms. Fortunately, we don't do any other extra-curriculars.
Of course, this is only going to get worse in January when my daughter starts at the school as well. It's going to be one thing driving ten blocks to pick her up from school at lunchtime and then going back out for her brother at three. It's going to be quite another to spend forty minutes on the round trip to drop them off by 9, forty minutes to collect her at 12 and forty minutes to collect him at 3.
The most convenient option is to have her lunch and nap at school, so I'm picking them both up together, but that's a lot of extra fees for her to sleep through. Also, I don't think there's any alternative should she drop her nap. In other words, the nap will be enforced on her whether she needs it or not, which could create a different set of problems for us in the evenings.
Anyway, we are very much crossing that bridge when we come to it. Thankfully, it's going to be a relatively short term problem, but it's going to be a royal nuisance as long as it lasts.
Also a problem? Finding a week's worth of packed lunches for my son when peanut butter sandwiches are banned. It's not a huge surprise, since most schools don't allow peanut butter these days, but his current school doesn't have a problem with it, and they're just about his favourite thing to eat. I am going to need some serious research on packable meals before September rolls around.
But right now, I'm trying to deal with the thought that tomorrow is his last day at the old school--something which is giving me many more pangs than it is him. I really need to take a leaf out of his book and be excited about what's to come rather than mourning what will never be again.
Monday, 3 June 2013
Stay At Home Mum Revisited
This week will be the children's last at school, which means two and a half months of summer holiday--or the end of my mornings to myself! Seems like a good excuse for a retrospective on being a stay at home Mum with school-age children.
Bear in mind that my intention for 2013 was to return to work although I should note that my hope was to be able to work at the same school as my children. and this did not pan out. I did have a brief stint covering for another teacher, but since February, my children have been going to school every morning while I stay at home. Initially, I was very much looking forward to the experience of having three hours to myself every day--it seemed so decadent and so full of opportunities to Do All The Things.
Children Get Sick
In fact, it started off with me acting as nursemaid as the whole family got sick with the round of winter bugs. The children (mostly my two year old daughter) continued to be sick off and on until the beginning of May, but certainly February and March were almost completely taken up with one child or another being off school. Meanwhile, I felt almost permanently under the weather as ear / eye / throat infections caused interrupted nights, and the stress of not getting other things done translated into insomnia.
Coming right after my month as a substitute teacher, this was something of a wake-up call, as it was starkly obvious just how difficult February and March would have been if I was working. I could hardly have taken half the week off every week.
Obviously, in that situation, my husband could have taken days off as well--in a pinch, he could probably manage to work from home, although that wouldn't always be feasible. Also, there were days when I erred on the side of keeping a weepy child home; if we were both working, I'd be more likely to send them into school and hope for the best.
Even so, it made me appreciate just how difficult it is logistically when both parents are working with no alternative childcare. For that seven week period, there were at least two days of every week when somebody (usually my daughter, but we all suffered off and on) had to stay at home, which would have meant either my husband or myself (and a couple of times, both of us) would have had to take a day off work.
Millions of families manage it, so no doubt we could as well, but that doesn't mean it's easy, and I don't suppose anybody really succeeds in keeping all the plates spinning without dropping one from time to time. We could afford a nanny, but considering where my interests lie, we don't personally gain much advantage from paying my salary to somebody else to look after our children.
Time Abhors a Vacuum
Once the children did start getting into reasonable stretches of wellness (and we weren't going on trips around the US), I finally got into a routine of free mornings. That has been wonderful. It's a tremendous luxury after four years of infant and toddler-care, and I love it!
Still, it's interesting noting the disconnect between what I envisioned and reality. One of the things you learn as a parent is that you can get a phenomenal amount of things done if somebody takes the children away for just a couple of hours. Whenever I needed to completely reorganise a room or had some other grand housework job, I would get my husband to take the children out at the weekend while I got the job done.
Therefore, I vaguely assumed that five such opportunities every week would mean that my house would be eternally spotless, I could tackle all those projects I'd been meaning to do, and still have time to go out and just enjoy shopping or maybe take a weekly swimming class or something. Not to mention, with that daily break from childcare, I'd not only be able to stay patient with the children, but I'd have boundless enthusiasm for our afternoon activities.
The reality? Well, my personality is such that I get fixated on things. So if I decided to reorganise the filing cabinets or archive all the photos or write, I would do that. I would not do any housework. Moreover, when the children got home, assuming I had not finished my current project, I'd be thinking about it, twitchy to get back to it and... yes... irritable with the children for distracting me from my ongoing task.
It probably took me a few weeks to figure this out. Damnit, cognitive dissonance. While realising this means I can work around it a bit, it is always going to be a problem for me, it's something I will have to keep watching out for, and it will certainly always be one of the flaws in my parenting.
The truth is, of course, however much time we have, we expand our activities to fill it and thus constantly feel that we don't have enough time. I never did take up that swimming class, and I haven't done much shopping outside of necessities either--though, to be fair, I don't really like shopping that much, and right now, the novelty of being alone in the house hasn't worn off. I'd much rather treat myself to twenty minutes of watching How I Met Your Mother in peace than of looking at clothes on a rack.
Social Guilt
The irony here is that I've always been an advocate of the stay at home mother, yet personally, I felt that I could not justify my unemployment once both the children were at school. It was always my intention to return to work at this point, so that I would be contributing to the household finances and so that I would be focusing on myself and my career plans--i.e. so that I wouldn't 'just' be a Mum.
Had things worked out and I'd been able to take up the job I originally wanted, this would probably be a post about getting to grips with parenting and career. Instead I've spent the past few months wondering if I should find a Plan B without actually starting the jobhunt.
Part of this has been because we have been finding a new school for the children (more on that in another post) and we agreed both that that should take priority and that there wasn't a lot of point in me finding a job until we had that settled and we knew what my time commitment to the children would be. Working at the same school would have solved a lot of logistical issues regarding hours and holidays; we've still got to account for those.
Yet a lot of my procrastination has been due to my own re-assessment of my value to this family. I appreciate more than I did before that having one parent who doesn't work is a huge asset (even if it does come with unfortunate housewife connotations). And while any family can benefit from a second salary, we're very very lucky that we can live so comfortably off my husband's current income.
It doesn't mean I'm giving up on my career, but I can still plan for it, research my options and prepare myself. I fully intend to earn money again, but it's going to wait another year, maybe longer. (Around this point in reading the blog, my husband is probably having a great time devising snarky comments--I do it all for you, dear.) Again, I'm in a fortunate position here, in that I'm not looking to climb a lengthy career ladder. I've read plenty of blogposts from mothers who would like to stay at home longer, but whose job aspirations prevent them from putting their careers on hold.
Fortunately, the other lesson I've learned from the past few months (and indeed, the past few years) is that being a stay-at-home mum doesn't mean that I've lost my identity outside of the children. The internet in particular has been a great outlet for that--thank heavens, I've always been a geek! Serendipitously, this assuages some of my income guilt because at least my hobbies come free.
The Long and the Short Term of It
And that, in a nutshell, is how I've learned to stop worrying and love being a Stay At Home Mum. (Well, maybe I'm still a little defensive.) What I don't yet know is how long this situation will continue. Until both children are out of pre-school? Until my daughter's immune system kicks into gear? Until an unmissable job opportunity presents itself? Or perhaps until after we've left the US, which is another nebulous deadline we talk about occasionally.
I hope this doesn't become one of those things where I wait for a right moment that never comes, but certainly, here and now, it makes sense to keep ourselves adaptable. Perhaps I'll have new plans for 2014.
Right now, I've got a week left to relish my mornings, before I go back to being a full-time mother over the summer vacation. I suspect I might be feeling quite jaded about that in another month or so, but for the time being, I'm excited about taking the children on days out so I'm going to capitalise on my enthusiasm while it lasts!
Bear in mind that my intention for 2013 was to return to work although I should note that my hope was to be able to work at the same school as my children. and this did not pan out. I did have a brief stint covering for another teacher, but since February, my children have been going to school every morning while I stay at home. Initially, I was very much looking forward to the experience of having three hours to myself every day--it seemed so decadent and so full of opportunities to Do All The Things.
Children Get Sick
In fact, it started off with me acting as nursemaid as the whole family got sick with the round of winter bugs. The children (mostly my two year old daughter) continued to be sick off and on until the beginning of May, but certainly February and March were almost completely taken up with one child or another being off school. Meanwhile, I felt almost permanently under the weather as ear / eye / throat infections caused interrupted nights, and the stress of not getting other things done translated into insomnia.
Coming right after my month as a substitute teacher, this was something of a wake-up call, as it was starkly obvious just how difficult February and March would have been if I was working. I could hardly have taken half the week off every week.
Obviously, in that situation, my husband could have taken days off as well--in a pinch, he could probably manage to work from home, although that wouldn't always be feasible. Also, there were days when I erred on the side of keeping a weepy child home; if we were both working, I'd be more likely to send them into school and hope for the best.
Even so, it made me appreciate just how difficult it is logistically when both parents are working with no alternative childcare. For that seven week period, there were at least two days of every week when somebody (usually my daughter, but we all suffered off and on) had to stay at home, which would have meant either my husband or myself (and a couple of times, both of us) would have had to take a day off work.
Millions of families manage it, so no doubt we could as well, but that doesn't mean it's easy, and I don't suppose anybody really succeeds in keeping all the plates spinning without dropping one from time to time. We could afford a nanny, but considering where my interests lie, we don't personally gain much advantage from paying my salary to somebody else to look after our children.
Time Abhors a Vacuum
Once the children did start getting into reasonable stretches of wellness (and we weren't going on trips around the US), I finally got into a routine of free mornings. That has been wonderful. It's a tremendous luxury after four years of infant and toddler-care, and I love it!
Still, it's interesting noting the disconnect between what I envisioned and reality. One of the things you learn as a parent is that you can get a phenomenal amount of things done if somebody takes the children away for just a couple of hours. Whenever I needed to completely reorganise a room or had some other grand housework job, I would get my husband to take the children out at the weekend while I got the job done.
Therefore, I vaguely assumed that five such opportunities every week would mean that my house would be eternally spotless, I could tackle all those projects I'd been meaning to do, and still have time to go out and just enjoy shopping or maybe take a weekly swimming class or something. Not to mention, with that daily break from childcare, I'd not only be able to stay patient with the children, but I'd have boundless enthusiasm for our afternoon activities.
The reality? Well, my personality is such that I get fixated on things. So if I decided to reorganise the filing cabinets or archive all the photos or write, I would do that. I would not do any housework. Moreover, when the children got home, assuming I had not finished my current project, I'd be thinking about it, twitchy to get back to it and... yes... irritable with the children for distracting me from my ongoing task.
It probably took me a few weeks to figure this out. Damnit, cognitive dissonance. While realising this means I can work around it a bit, it is always going to be a problem for me, it's something I will have to keep watching out for, and it will certainly always be one of the flaws in my parenting.
The truth is, of course, however much time we have, we expand our activities to fill it and thus constantly feel that we don't have enough time. I never did take up that swimming class, and I haven't done much shopping outside of necessities either--though, to be fair, I don't really like shopping that much, and right now, the novelty of being alone in the house hasn't worn off. I'd much rather treat myself to twenty minutes of watching How I Met Your Mother in peace than of looking at clothes on a rack.
Social Guilt
The irony here is that I've always been an advocate of the stay at home mother, yet personally, I felt that I could not justify my unemployment once both the children were at school. It was always my intention to return to work at this point, so that I would be contributing to the household finances and so that I would be focusing on myself and my career plans--i.e. so that I wouldn't 'just' be a Mum.
Had things worked out and I'd been able to take up the job I originally wanted, this would probably be a post about getting to grips with parenting and career. Instead I've spent the past few months wondering if I should find a Plan B without actually starting the jobhunt.
Part of this has been because we have been finding a new school for the children (more on that in another post) and we agreed both that that should take priority and that there wasn't a lot of point in me finding a job until we had that settled and we knew what my time commitment to the children would be. Working at the same school would have solved a lot of logistical issues regarding hours and holidays; we've still got to account for those.
Yet a lot of my procrastination has been due to my own re-assessment of my value to this family. I appreciate more than I did before that having one parent who doesn't work is a huge asset (even if it does come with unfortunate housewife connotations). And while any family can benefit from a second salary, we're very very lucky that we can live so comfortably off my husband's current income.
It doesn't mean I'm giving up on my career, but I can still plan for it, research my options and prepare myself. I fully intend to earn money again, but it's going to wait another year, maybe longer. (Around this point in reading the blog, my husband is probably having a great time devising snarky comments--I do it all for you, dear.) Again, I'm in a fortunate position here, in that I'm not looking to climb a lengthy career ladder. I've read plenty of blogposts from mothers who would like to stay at home longer, but whose job aspirations prevent them from putting their careers on hold.
Fortunately, the other lesson I've learned from the past few months (and indeed, the past few years) is that being a stay-at-home mum doesn't mean that I've lost my identity outside of the children. The internet in particular has been a great outlet for that--thank heavens, I've always been a geek! Serendipitously, this assuages some of my income guilt because at least my hobbies come free.
The Long and the Short Term of It
And that, in a nutshell, is how I've learned to stop worrying and love being a Stay At Home Mum. (Well, maybe I'm still a little defensive.) What I don't yet know is how long this situation will continue. Until both children are out of pre-school? Until my daughter's immune system kicks into gear? Until an unmissable job opportunity presents itself? Or perhaps until after we've left the US, which is another nebulous deadline we talk about occasionally.
I hope this doesn't become one of those things where I wait for a right moment that never comes, but certainly, here and now, it makes sense to keep ourselves adaptable. Perhaps I'll have new plans for 2014.
Right now, I've got a week left to relish my mornings, before I go back to being a full-time mother over the summer vacation. I suspect I might be feeling quite jaded about that in another month or so, but for the time being, I'm excited about taking the children on days out so I'm going to capitalise on my enthusiasm while it lasts!
Monday, 20 May 2013
Keep Calm and Nappies Off
So, it's been a little over three weeks since I took the nappies off my daughter and let her (more or less) figure potty training out for herself, and it's been a roaring success. Let's review.
Day 1 (Friday): Nappies came off at 3pm. Also, the rugs came off our hardwood floors, absorbent pads were laid down on the sofas, and her bed was layered with sheets and mattress protectors to facilitate night-time changing. I did not stress.
Day 2: She figured out how to hold her bladder to delay wetting herself for as long as possible. I would send her to the potty on wake-up and before bed (with random results) but otherwise, it was up to her. I did not stress.
Day 3: She got the hang of peeing on demand, so every visit to the potty was a productive one. I continued to send her to the potty as part of her wake-up and go-to-bed routines, but I did not ask her to go during the day, and she continued to have accidents. I did not stress.
Day 4 (Monday): Routine potty visits now included 'before going out'. She returned to school with copious changes of clothing, and the teacher took her to the potty at regular intervals. No accidents. We went out to run errands in the afternoon, and she pooped in her pants, teaching me a valuable lesson in what I needed to have with me for clean-up. I did not stress... just.
Day 5: She cottoned on to using the potty as a stalling technique for anything she didn't want to do. I did not stress.
Day 6: Three days of pooping three times a day, none of them on the toilet, was starting to get to me. There were no signs of any progress on wetting the bed either. She wouldn't wake up in the night, but in the morning, she woke up wet. I did not stress over the bed-wetting, but I was getting frustrated by the poop issue.
Days 7-11: The bowel movement, thank god, went back to once a day. Both children caught a cold, resulting in broken nights, so I started taking my daughter to the potty whenever she woke up during the night. Her sheets stayed dry... and they kept on staying dry even as she went back to sleeping through. I went straight back to not stressing.
Day 12: I happened to be looking at her face at the right time and managed to whisk her to the potty for a bowel movement. Later she rushed to the potty spontaneously only to wet herself in front of it. I did not stress, but I did start getting excited.
Day 13: Spontaneous potty usage. She started successfully pooping and peeing in the toilet all by herself--including taking herself to the bathroom halfway through a television show. I did not stress, but I did rejoice wholeheartedly.
Day 14: She got an eye infection and went on an antibiotic that gave her diarrhoea for about five days. I was not best pleased, but she handled the regression fairly well with about a 75% success rate of getting to the potty on time. I did not stress.
And that has been that. No rewards, no scolding, no stories about the poop fairy... and best of all, no nappies! I did do some encouragement and some reminders, but for the most part, I tried not to make it a big deal, and my daughter took it in her stride, although she was confused for the first couple of days. I'm sure it wouldn't work like this for everybody (and there was no way I'd have been this relaxed if it was my first time potty training), but I'm thrilled it worked so well for us.
We're now on day 24, and she is still having the occasional accident (something like twice a week), but she's so consistent and so reliable that half the time I don't even send her to the potty at our routine times if she says she doesn't need it. This is a huge improvement from potty training my son, where I had to send him to the potty every two hours for months. The rugs are back on the floor and her bed just has one sheet and one mattress protector on. I'm still taking a bag of spare clothes and my poop clean-up kit around with us, but I think it's time to start leaving it in the car along with the travel potty (which she hasn't used at all).
It's not all joy and perfection. The actual bodily functions are still such a novelty to her that she contorts herself trying to see what's going on--occasionally managing to pee on the floor. So much for not having to worry about girls aiming. She also insists on stripping her entire lower half completely to use the toilet, has no interest in learning how to put her clothes back on by herself and likes to give me as much trouble as possible over dressing her. That's something to be worked on, but obviously I will take this over nappy-cleanup any day!
In my previous post, I said that since she was happier using the child toilet seat rather than an actual potty that I was hoping to get rid of our potties. I have done, and not having to clean those out is a ridiculously good feeling. Better yet, I recently got the coupon book from our local wholesaler, and, for the first time in God knows how long, I did not clip the nappy coupon.
The nappy stage of our lives? Over!
Day 1 (Friday): Nappies came off at 3pm. Also, the rugs came off our hardwood floors, absorbent pads were laid down on the sofas, and her bed was layered with sheets and mattress protectors to facilitate night-time changing. I did not stress.
Day 2: She figured out how to hold her bladder to delay wetting herself for as long as possible. I would send her to the potty on wake-up and before bed (with random results) but otherwise, it was up to her. I did not stress.
Day 3: She got the hang of peeing on demand, so every visit to the potty was a productive one. I continued to send her to the potty as part of her wake-up and go-to-bed routines, but I did not ask her to go during the day, and she continued to have accidents. I did not stress.
Day 4 (Monday): Routine potty visits now included 'before going out'. She returned to school with copious changes of clothing, and the teacher took her to the potty at regular intervals. No accidents. We went out to run errands in the afternoon, and she pooped in her pants, teaching me a valuable lesson in what I needed to have with me for clean-up. I did not stress... just.
Day 5: She cottoned on to using the potty as a stalling technique for anything she didn't want to do. I did not stress.
Day 6: Three days of pooping three times a day, none of them on the toilet, was starting to get to me. There were no signs of any progress on wetting the bed either. She wouldn't wake up in the night, but in the morning, she woke up wet. I did not stress over the bed-wetting, but I was getting frustrated by the poop issue.
Days 7-11: The bowel movement, thank god, went back to once a day. Both children caught a cold, resulting in broken nights, so I started taking my daughter to the potty whenever she woke up during the night. Her sheets stayed dry... and they kept on staying dry even as she went back to sleeping through. I went straight back to not stressing.
Day 12: I happened to be looking at her face at the right time and managed to whisk her to the potty for a bowel movement. Later she rushed to the potty spontaneously only to wet herself in front of it. I did not stress, but I did start getting excited.
Day 13: Spontaneous potty usage. She started successfully pooping and peeing in the toilet all by herself--including taking herself to the bathroom halfway through a television show. I did not stress, but I did rejoice wholeheartedly.
Day 14: She got an eye infection and went on an antibiotic that gave her diarrhoea for about five days. I was not best pleased, but she handled the regression fairly well with about a 75% success rate of getting to the potty on time. I did not stress.
And that has been that. No rewards, no scolding, no stories about the poop fairy... and best of all, no nappies! I did do some encouragement and some reminders, but for the most part, I tried not to make it a big deal, and my daughter took it in her stride, although she was confused for the first couple of days. I'm sure it wouldn't work like this for everybody (and there was no way I'd have been this relaxed if it was my first time potty training), but I'm thrilled it worked so well for us.
We're now on day 24, and she is still having the occasional accident (something like twice a week), but she's so consistent and so reliable that half the time I don't even send her to the potty at our routine times if she says she doesn't need it. This is a huge improvement from potty training my son, where I had to send him to the potty every two hours for months. The rugs are back on the floor and her bed just has one sheet and one mattress protector on. I'm still taking a bag of spare clothes and my poop clean-up kit around with us, but I think it's time to start leaving it in the car along with the travel potty (which she hasn't used at all).
It's not all joy and perfection. The actual bodily functions are still such a novelty to her that she contorts herself trying to see what's going on--occasionally managing to pee on the floor. So much for not having to worry about girls aiming. She also insists on stripping her entire lower half completely to use the toilet, has no interest in learning how to put her clothes back on by herself and likes to give me as much trouble as possible over dressing her. That's something to be worked on, but obviously I will take this over nappy-cleanup any day!
In my previous post, I said that since she was happier using the child toilet seat rather than an actual potty that I was hoping to get rid of our potties. I have done, and not having to clean those out is a ridiculously good feeling. Better yet, I recently got the coupon book from our local wholesaler, and, for the first time in God knows how long, I did not clip the nappy coupon.
The nappy stage of our lives? Over!
Monday, 6 May 2013
Making a Giant Board Game (with Montessori Pink Reading)
Quick post as we're treading water here. Potty training going swimmingly, children sick again, and endless cold weather. Not really cold weather, but that taunting weather... where it's just cold enough that you have to wear a jacket, and I have to persuade my daughter to wear her trousers, even though she's suddenly decided that all of them have become uncomfortable, and it's really still too cold for sandals, but I've put them into them anyway because their shoes are worn out and I am not buying winter shoes in May!
Anyway, the winter's given me plenty of time to expand upon our repertoire of indoor activities. My son adores board games, and a couple of months ago, I had this moment of inspiration: I could build him a giant boardgame using our foam floor tiles (you've probably at least seen these around in alphabet form).
I'd also been trying to find ways of getting my son to use his newfound (and very limited!) reading skills without repeating what he does at school. So my next idea was to make cards for each tile, so when you land on them, you have to do what the card says. And when I say 'cards,' I mean 'pieces of paper with handwritten text' because I know that the more effort you go to, the less your children will appreciate it.
My son loved the result.
I built the above layout around our playtent. If you land on the tile in front of the tent door, the card says 'zip' so you unzip (no nitpicking!) the tent, go through and come out of the side entrance, further down the board.
There are several other props scattered around the board, next to the relevant card. My son places the cards, and then I put the props down.
We move around the board by throwing a die. Because we only have twenty-six tiles, it doesn't take long to finish a game, so we normally play it two or three times in a row, which gives us more chances to land on any one card. Most cards are just a straightforward action, though a few move you forward. One has you miss a turn, but I haven't had the nerve to put in one that sends you back!
My son is on the 'pink reading' at his Montessori school, which means he can (if he concentrates) sound out three letter words with phonetic spellings. At school, he mostly does concrete nouns, so for our cards, I spent a day or two brainstorming three letter verbs, with a few other words thrown in.
I can see us continually updating this game as the children get older, making it more elaborate. God knows what it will involve by the time they're in college.
This is the list of cards that we currently use, with italics explaining where necessary. Not all of them are strictly phonetic, but my son has them all figured out by this point. There are less than twenty-six for the simple reason that I ran out of ideas. Further contributions will be gratefully accepted!
Cut - scissors and paper provided
Dip and dab - Dip sponge in dish of water and dab on paper towel provided.
Dig mime digging (I am still trying to figure out a tidy method of indoor digging!)
Fan - fan provided
Go to red - go forward to the next red tile.
Hit triangle / cymbal / drum
Hop 2 - hop forward two spaces
Hug your fellow player
Hum
Jig
Jog 2 - jog forward two spaces
Mad - make an angry face
Nap - miss a turn
Nod your head
Pat a cat - toy cat provided
Put on a hat - hats provided
Rub your hands
Run 3 - run forward three spaces
Sad - make a sad face
Sip water provided
Sit
Tap a tambourine
Zip purse or go through the tent
And on the final tile:
Win
Anyway, the winter's given me plenty of time to expand upon our repertoire of indoor activities. My son adores board games, and a couple of months ago, I had this moment of inspiration: I could build him a giant boardgame using our foam floor tiles (you've probably at least seen these around in alphabet form).
I'd also been trying to find ways of getting my son to use his newfound (and very limited!) reading skills without repeating what he does at school. So my next idea was to make cards for each tile, so when you land on them, you have to do what the card says. And when I say 'cards,' I mean 'pieces of paper with handwritten text' because I know that the more effort you go to, the less your children will appreciate it.
My son loved the result.
I built the above layout around our playtent. If you land on the tile in front of the tent door, the card says 'zip' so you unzip (no nitpicking!) the tent, go through and come out of the side entrance, further down the board.
There are several other props scattered around the board, next to the relevant card. My son places the cards, and then I put the props down.
We move around the board by throwing a die. Because we only have twenty-six tiles, it doesn't take long to finish a game, so we normally play it two or three times in a row, which gives us more chances to land on any one card. Most cards are just a straightforward action, though a few move you forward. One has you miss a turn, but I haven't had the nerve to put in one that sends you back!
My son is on the 'pink reading' at his Montessori school, which means he can (if he concentrates) sound out three letter words with phonetic spellings. At school, he mostly does concrete nouns, so for our cards, I spent a day or two brainstorming three letter verbs, with a few other words thrown in.
I can see us continually updating this game as the children get older, making it more elaborate. God knows what it will involve by the time they're in college.
This is the list of cards that we currently use, with italics explaining where necessary. Not all of them are strictly phonetic, but my son has them all figured out by this point. There are less than twenty-six for the simple reason that I ran out of ideas. Further contributions will be gratefully accepted!
Cut - scissors and paper provided
Dip and dab - Dip sponge in dish of water and dab on paper towel provided.
Dig mime digging (I am still trying to figure out a tidy method of indoor digging!)
Fan - fan provided
Go to red - go forward to the next red tile.
Hit triangle / cymbal / drum
Hop 2 - hop forward two spaces
Hug your fellow player
Hum
Jig
Jog 2 - jog forward two spaces
Mad - make an angry face
Nap - miss a turn
Nod your head
Pat a cat - toy cat provided
Put on a hat - hats provided
Rub your hands
Run 3 - run forward three spaces
Sad - make a sad face
Sip water provided
Sit
Tap a tambourine
Zip purse or go through the tent
And on the final tile:
Win
Wednesday, 1 May 2013
Life without Nappies: potty-training the second time around
This weekend, we've been potty training. When I potty-trained my son, I was so apprehensive about it and so stressed throughout the process, even though it was relatively smooth. This time, I am pleased to report that I struggled to muster any concern over the proceedings whatsoever.
The Theory: How and When
When it comes to potty-training, my advice is to pick the method that feels the most comfortable for you, because if you're stressed over it, that's going to pass onto your child. The biggest key to success in potty training is not to stress your child!
However, I need to qualify my advice with the statement that you will get stressed if you've never done it before (and quite probably even if you have). You won't be able to figure out what worried you so much in retrospect, but you'll almost certainly be a wreck at one point or another while potty-training. It just comes with the threat of human excrement being spread around your house.
So your best bet is to pick whichever method is the most intuitive for you. The one you feel you understand and agree with the theory behind it. That way when things don't go by the book, you can adapt the methods to suit your situation without losing the principle.
Speaking of avoiding stress, I'm not a huge fan of the Signs that Your Child is Ready lists. If you're anything like me, it won't matter how much they tell you your child doesn't need to exhibit all the signs, you will still worry over whether they're showing enough of them to warrant potty-training. As far as I can tell, what they all boil down to is this:
One trend I do seem to notice is that younger children are more likely to take it in their stride than older children, although it's not like I've done a proper survey on this. I know I've always wanted to beat the 'terrible twos' which usually kick in around two and a half.
My Theory
I've always quite liked the option of not potty-training, because your child will train themselves sooner or later (which usually seems to be at the age of three, but I've not researched this). However, I like the environmental and financial savings of potty training earlier; it gives you more pre-school options too. (I wouldn't advocate rushing potty-training just to send your child to pre-school, but I wouldn't recommend limiting your options by avoiding potty-training either.)
Let's not underestimate the lure of being done with nappies!
I'm a big fan of the cold turkey, straight into underwear approach, which has the Montessori advantage of Control of Error (i.e. the child can tell when they've peed). Based on my experiences as a teacher, it's the most effective way. It's also the basis of a lot of these three day potty training techniques, which many people insist are a con and too much pressure on the child, but that really depends on what you're intending to get out of the three days.
In my view, three days at home, out of nappies and having accidents is as much to train the parent as the child. While the child becomes used to the act of urinating and practices the skills required to use the potty successfully, the parent learns how long their child goes between relieving themselves and the tell-tale signs of when they need to go. (Actually, in my case, it's mostly how long they can last before they need to pee again. I am really really bad at picking up on "I need to pee!" behaviour.) And, of course, getting used to cleaning up accidents.
By the time the weekend is over, you should know enough to adapt potty breaks into your usual routine and be able to go out with minimal risk of accidents. But it does mean a fairly intensive weekend of focusing on the child, keeping on top of laundry, hygiene etc. There's pressure on you and that can transfer to pressure on the child as well. There are many other ways of going about it.
If you want to try the cold turkey approach, I started with the ebook available here. I liked several of the author's philosophies, such as leaving the potty in the bathroom, so they learn to account for that travel time. Please note that this approach is not best suited to carpeting. Our entire downstairs is hardwood, and planning some outdoor activities don't go amiss either!
No Frills Preparation
My daughter's been interested in her brother's potty since she was about 21 months (she's not quite 27 months now), but I wasn't ready. For me the best time to potty train isn't so much age as season. Warm weather means less clothes and the ability to have 'accidents' outside, which is a huge saving on clean-up.
I did buy my daughter pull-ups when she insisted on sitting on the potty whenever I changed her into / out of her pajamas (since her brother usually used it then too). I thought I might as well let her have some practice at other times even if I wasn't ready to focus on it. All that did was convince me that pull-ups are a pain in the arse. Nappies are just so much easier to use--pull-ups have the convenience of access, but are ironically difficult for a child to pull up and down. My daughter never used them as intended and we went back to nappies.
I already had in most of what we needed from training my son: potties, step-stool / seat adapter, waterproof mattress covers, absorbent pads for the sofas, travel potty. All I needed to buy was underwear (one pack for her bedroom, one pack for the downstairs bathroom and one pack for school).
I knew I wanted to train her well in advance of our trip to the UK this summer, because on a transatlantic flight you want to be sat next to a toddler with as much experience of bladder control as possible. However, come Friday, both my husband and I were feeling very run down (my husband was definitely sick, and we assume I had a touch of it as well) and there was part of me that really could not be arsed to do potty-training. On the other hand, I knew this was going to be the last free weekend for awhile, and I'd hate myself if we didn't do it.
She had to stay in nappies for the morning anyway, when she went to school, and then I let her have her nap before I took them off, and then she was a bit cranky when she woke up... finally, at 3pm, I gave myself a mental kick up the backside and put her in underwear.
No Frills Experience
And that was more or less that. Both my husband and I were so sleepy and docile we struggled to care, once we got past the stage of viewing her as a ticking time bomb (waiting for that first pee is truly edge-of-your-seat entertainment). We just couldn't keep focused on her, and as she spends 90% of her time bouncing and dancing around, it was pretty difficult to judge the state of her bladder anyway. But we were ready for it. When she had an accident (to her great confusion) I would whisk her to the potty, wipe her down, give her fresh underwear, clean up the mess in the living room--and go back to the sofa.
In some ways, this was great because I stayed so zen about it. I told my daughter to let me know when she needed to go potty, and we told her she is supposed to pee in the potty, but we didn't do rewards, and we didn't try to get her to drink as much as possible to give us all extra practice, and we didn't coax, and we didn't get agitated when she had her accidents. We just dealt with it as it came.
Second child syndrome helped hugely here, because she was so used to seeing her brother use a potty that was available for her to use. In fact, I'd deliberately left his potty out long after we could have switched him to the big toilet, just so she would be used to the concept. However, we have this step-stool / seat adapter on the toilet in their bathroom and she prefers that to the potty. My son was the other way around, but having them go in the big toilet is so much easier that we've ordered another seat for downstairs and I plan on removing the potties altogether. Being done with nappies and potties? Sounds too good to be true. Let's see!
Anyway, she was confused but unfazed by the state of affairs on Friday. On Saturday, she decided to deal with it by learning bladder control, lasting five hours at one point. That's pretty much been the status quo ever since. She's not going spontaneously, and for the first day she resisted any requests to use the potty outside of our established routine. Now she's generally compliant, she has no trouble peeing on it (which is wonderful after dealing with a boy and having to make sure everything's pointing downwards), and is very pleased with herself for doing so.
I'm still trying to avoid sending her to the potty when we're at home though, because with my son I caved to that pressure, and the result was that it took months for him to reliably take the initiative himself. I'd love for my daughter to figure it out now, though if she doesn't get it in a couple of weeks, I suspect I'll go back on that principle.
She's a little behind where my son was at this point, because we actively encouraged him whereas in her case, I want her to do it for herself and not for us (how very Montessori of me!). But for the most part, it's been easier taking it more slowly. Rather than focusing on this three day deadline, it's just been an adjustment to life without nappies.
Ongoing Problems
With my son, night-time training was never a problem. He was dry through the night straightaway (he was doing that even in nappies). About two weeks after potty-training, he started wetting the bed as a ploy to make us come in and clean him up. We were going through some stay-in-bed issues with him at the time, and we chose to put him in pull-ups overnight for a few months until those were dealt with. That worked out perfectly, and we've never had a problem with him since.
Of course, what this means is that I have no idea how to deal with bed-wetting. So far, my daughter has wet the bed four out of five nights, though only one of those involved rousing me in the middle of the night to change her. I took a tip from my friend in layering the bed, putting a sheet and a mattress protector over the one already on there. This lets me just pull off the top layer and let her go back to sleep on the next one, but I am not planning on doing this for months.
Right now it seems that rather than learning to hold her bladder through the night, she's learned to sleep through wetting herself. Since she's always dry when we go to bed around 10pm, I'm going to start waking her up then and getting her on the potty, see if that makes a difference. I am totally open to hearing other basic tactics... Worst case scenario, we stick her back in pull ups at night and have another go later in the year. Having a two year old wet the bed is hardly something to stress over.
Less easy to work around is the pooping issue. Poop is really where the three day potty training scheme does fall down, because it's unlikely your child will poop enough in those three days to get the hang of it. It's also really unpleasant to deal with in underwear. I've got my tips for clean-up now, but ultimately, there's no easy way of doing it and there's always a lot of clean-up.
The good news and the bad news is that my daughter isn't worried about pooping. In fact, she's pooping three times a day, and taking it so much in her stride that I rarely notice she's doing/done it. We had our first trip out Monday afternoon, and she managed to poop in her carseat... which then got onto her carseat.
The other bad news is that my sleepy, zen-like state has worn off and I'm now in slight-headache state. Oh, and our four year old son has not developed a sudden love of solitude, so our poop-clean-ups are invariably interrupted with "What are you doing?" or "I want a snack."
Basically, I'm getting stressed when I clean up the poop. It's hard not to express that frustration, and I keep venting it on my poor son because I'm trying to keep my daughter relaxed. I'm not quite at the point of feeding her a cheese only diet yet, but if she stays this prolific, something else is going to have to give!
Still, for the most part, it's gone very smoothly. She's had no accidents at school (though they are loaded up with spare clothes) and we had a successful trip to the mall yesterday, using public toilets without issue. And while I'm not quite exhaling yet, it really is fantastic to not be changing nappies!
The Theory: How and When
When it comes to potty-training, my advice is to pick the method that feels the most comfortable for you, because if you're stressed over it, that's going to pass onto your child. The biggest key to success in potty training is not to stress your child!
However, I need to qualify my advice with the statement that you will get stressed if you've never done it before (and quite probably even if you have). You won't be able to figure out what worried you so much in retrospect, but you'll almost certainly be a wreck at one point or another while potty-training. It just comes with the threat of human excrement being spread around your house.
So your best bet is to pick whichever method is the most intuitive for you. The one you feel you understand and agree with the theory behind it. That way when things don't go by the book, you can adapt the methods to suit your situation without losing the principle.
Speaking of avoiding stress, I'm not a huge fan of the Signs that Your Child is Ready lists. If you're anything like me, it won't matter how much they tell you your child doesn't need to exhibit all the signs, you will still worry over whether they're showing enough of them to warrant potty-training. As far as I can tell, what they all boil down to is this:
Your child has shown awareness of or interest in bodily functions and the process of going to the toilet.In the case of my son (trained at 29 months), his readiness signs were mostly limited to screaming blue murder when we changed his nappy. Potty-training was not a problem and considerably easier on the eardrums. Ultimately, it's a judgment call for you to make.
One trend I do seem to notice is that younger children are more likely to take it in their stride than older children, although it's not like I've done a proper survey on this. I know I've always wanted to beat the 'terrible twos' which usually kick in around two and a half.
My Theory
I've always quite liked the option of not potty-training, because your child will train themselves sooner or later (which usually seems to be at the age of three, but I've not researched this). However, I like the environmental and financial savings of potty training earlier; it gives you more pre-school options too. (I wouldn't advocate rushing potty-training just to send your child to pre-school, but I wouldn't recommend limiting your options by avoiding potty-training either.)
Let's not underestimate the lure of being done with nappies!
I'm a big fan of the cold turkey, straight into underwear approach, which has the Montessori advantage of Control of Error (i.e. the child can tell when they've peed). Based on my experiences as a teacher, it's the most effective way. It's also the basis of a lot of these three day potty training techniques, which many people insist are a con and too much pressure on the child, but that really depends on what you're intending to get out of the three days.
In my view, three days at home, out of nappies and having accidents is as much to train the parent as the child. While the child becomes used to the act of urinating and practices the skills required to use the potty successfully, the parent learns how long their child goes between relieving themselves and the tell-tale signs of when they need to go. (Actually, in my case, it's mostly how long they can last before they need to pee again. I am really really bad at picking up on "I need to pee!" behaviour.) And, of course, getting used to cleaning up accidents.
By the time the weekend is over, you should know enough to adapt potty breaks into your usual routine and be able to go out with minimal risk of accidents. But it does mean a fairly intensive weekend of focusing on the child, keeping on top of laundry, hygiene etc. There's pressure on you and that can transfer to pressure on the child as well. There are many other ways of going about it.
If you want to try the cold turkey approach, I started with the ebook available here. I liked several of the author's philosophies, such as leaving the potty in the bathroom, so they learn to account for that travel time. Please note that this approach is not best suited to carpeting. Our entire downstairs is hardwood, and planning some outdoor activities don't go amiss either!
No Frills Preparation
My daughter's been interested in her brother's potty since she was about 21 months (she's not quite 27 months now), but I wasn't ready. For me the best time to potty train isn't so much age as season. Warm weather means less clothes and the ability to have 'accidents' outside, which is a huge saving on clean-up.
I did buy my daughter pull-ups when she insisted on sitting on the potty whenever I changed her into / out of her pajamas (since her brother usually used it then too). I thought I might as well let her have some practice at other times even if I wasn't ready to focus on it. All that did was convince me that pull-ups are a pain in the arse. Nappies are just so much easier to use--pull-ups have the convenience of access, but are ironically difficult for a child to pull up and down. My daughter never used them as intended and we went back to nappies.
I already had in most of what we needed from training my son: potties, step-stool / seat adapter, waterproof mattress covers, absorbent pads for the sofas, travel potty. All I needed to buy was underwear (one pack for her bedroom, one pack for the downstairs bathroom and one pack for school).
I knew I wanted to train her well in advance of our trip to the UK this summer, because on a transatlantic flight you want to be sat next to a toddler with as much experience of bladder control as possible. However, come Friday, both my husband and I were feeling very run down (my husband was definitely sick, and we assume I had a touch of it as well) and there was part of me that really could not be arsed to do potty-training. On the other hand, I knew this was going to be the last free weekend for awhile, and I'd hate myself if we didn't do it.
She had to stay in nappies for the morning anyway, when she went to school, and then I let her have her nap before I took them off, and then she was a bit cranky when she woke up... finally, at 3pm, I gave myself a mental kick up the backside and put her in underwear.
No Frills Experience
And that was more or less that. Both my husband and I were so sleepy and docile we struggled to care, once we got past the stage of viewing her as a ticking time bomb (waiting for that first pee is truly edge-of-your-seat entertainment). We just couldn't keep focused on her, and as she spends 90% of her time bouncing and dancing around, it was pretty difficult to judge the state of her bladder anyway. But we were ready for it. When she had an accident (to her great confusion) I would whisk her to the potty, wipe her down, give her fresh underwear, clean up the mess in the living room--and go back to the sofa.
In some ways, this was great because I stayed so zen about it. I told my daughter to let me know when she needed to go potty, and we told her she is supposed to pee in the potty, but we didn't do rewards, and we didn't try to get her to drink as much as possible to give us all extra practice, and we didn't coax, and we didn't get agitated when she had her accidents. We just dealt with it as it came.
Second child syndrome helped hugely here, because she was so used to seeing her brother use a potty that was available for her to use. In fact, I'd deliberately left his potty out long after we could have switched him to the big toilet, just so she would be used to the concept. However, we have this step-stool / seat adapter on the toilet in their bathroom and she prefers that to the potty. My son was the other way around, but having them go in the big toilet is so much easier that we've ordered another seat for downstairs and I plan on removing the potties altogether. Being done with nappies and potties? Sounds too good to be true. Let's see!
Anyway, she was confused but unfazed by the state of affairs on Friday. On Saturday, she decided to deal with it by learning bladder control, lasting five hours at one point. That's pretty much been the status quo ever since. She's not going spontaneously, and for the first day she resisted any requests to use the potty outside of our established routine. Now she's generally compliant, she has no trouble peeing on it (which is wonderful after dealing with a boy and having to make sure everything's pointing downwards), and is very pleased with herself for doing so.
I'm still trying to avoid sending her to the potty when we're at home though, because with my son I caved to that pressure, and the result was that it took months for him to reliably take the initiative himself. I'd love for my daughter to figure it out now, though if she doesn't get it in a couple of weeks, I suspect I'll go back on that principle.
She's a little behind where my son was at this point, because we actively encouraged him whereas in her case, I want her to do it for herself and not for us (how very Montessori of me!). But for the most part, it's been easier taking it more slowly. Rather than focusing on this three day deadline, it's just been an adjustment to life without nappies.
Ongoing Problems
With my son, night-time training was never a problem. He was dry through the night straightaway (he was doing that even in nappies). About two weeks after potty-training, he started wetting the bed as a ploy to make us come in and clean him up. We were going through some stay-in-bed issues with him at the time, and we chose to put him in pull-ups overnight for a few months until those were dealt with. That worked out perfectly, and we've never had a problem with him since.
Of course, what this means is that I have no idea how to deal with bed-wetting. So far, my daughter has wet the bed four out of five nights, though only one of those involved rousing me in the middle of the night to change her. I took a tip from my friend in layering the bed, putting a sheet and a mattress protector over the one already on there. This lets me just pull off the top layer and let her go back to sleep on the next one, but I am not planning on doing this for months.
Right now it seems that rather than learning to hold her bladder through the night, she's learned to sleep through wetting herself. Since she's always dry when we go to bed around 10pm, I'm going to start waking her up then and getting her on the potty, see if that makes a difference. I am totally open to hearing other basic tactics... Worst case scenario, we stick her back in pull ups at night and have another go later in the year. Having a two year old wet the bed is hardly something to stress over.
Less easy to work around is the pooping issue. Poop is really where the three day potty training scheme does fall down, because it's unlikely your child will poop enough in those three days to get the hang of it. It's also really unpleasant to deal with in underwear. I've got my tips for clean-up now, but ultimately, there's no easy way of doing it and there's always a lot of clean-up.
The good news and the bad news is that my daughter isn't worried about pooping. In fact, she's pooping three times a day, and taking it so much in her stride that I rarely notice she's doing/done it. We had our first trip out Monday afternoon, and she managed to poop in her carseat... which then got onto her carseat.
The other bad news is that my sleepy, zen-like state has worn off and I'm now in slight-headache state. Oh, and our four year old son has not developed a sudden love of solitude, so our poop-clean-ups are invariably interrupted with "What are you doing?" or "I want a snack."
Basically, I'm getting stressed when I clean up the poop. It's hard not to express that frustration, and I keep venting it on my poor son because I'm trying to keep my daughter relaxed. I'm not quite at the point of feeding her a cheese only diet yet, but if she stays this prolific, something else is going to have to give!
Still, for the most part, it's gone very smoothly. She's had no accidents at school (though they are loaded up with spare clothes) and we had a successful trip to the mall yesterday, using public toilets without issue. And while I'm not quite exhaling yet, it really is fantastic to not be changing nappies!
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Family holiday: around the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas
We got back just over a week ago from a two week holiday leaving me with 735 pictures (plus the eighteen my husband took on his iphone!) to go through. It's blissfully overwhelming. But I do want to write up a travelogue on it, so here's the first of three posts!
(Skip to Grand Canyon Road Trip or Las Vegas)
We haven't been a family-holiday family. Every year, we take a trip to the UK and spend two weeks meeting up with friends and family from all over England (and part of Scotland and Wales). Last year, we went to Orlando, piggybacking onto my husband's business trip. Though it meant that my husband didn't join us for most of the sight-seeing, it worked wonderfully well, and we were keen to take advantage of other business trips and conferences as a budget way of travelling (my husband's travel expenses and many of our living expenses are covered).
So when we discovered that my husband had a conference in Las Vegas the week following the children's spring break, we seized the opportunity with both hands. We flew out a week early, and spent the spring break week road tripping around the Grand Canyon, before spending the following week in Vegas. My husband had to take some leave, and the children missed a week of school, but we had five days of visiting natural wonders together, and it was amazing!
Planning
Our children are two and four years old, so they were our biggest limitation / consideration on this trip. There are some incredible things you can do in this part of the world, but they're not for small children--I kept saying I'd love to do this holiday again in ten years because we could have a totally different experience.
On the other hand, five and a half days to road trip around the Grand Canyon isn't enough to make the most of it either, so we were going to be limited anyway. I was less interested in Las Vegas, and figured (correctly) that the children would be exhausted by that point, so I didn't plan that portion of the trip particularly... I improvised when we got there.
Although we did better than I expected about having the children in bed by 7pm most nights, the change of routine and environment (and, in my daughter's case, having to nap in the car) was too much for them. The cheaper flights tend to be at horrible hours, and while we made it work, it was a lot for the children to recover from, and my two year old daughter never really did. My four year old son handled it beautifully for the first three days, and then the strain started to tell on him. Both enjoyed the different experiences, don't get me wrong, but meltdowns were frequent and they required a lot of patience and care to keep them going.
I planned our trip via Google. I'd use their maps to figure out driving distances between cities, and then search "What to do with toddlers in [city]?" For the most part, I tried to have no more than two hours of driving between bursts of activity (I think our longest stretch was four hours between Hoover Dam and Williams, but we did that in the evening and broke it up with a meal at Kingman.)
To make the trip more child-friendly, my focus ended up being sightseeing, as opposed to activities like rafting, climbing, pony-trekking, or learning about the indigenous people and history of the area. Fortunately, this part of the world is a four year old boy's dream, with deserts, canyons, mountains, a volcanic field and a meteor crater to go and gets hands on with.
Practicalities
To state the bleeding obvious, travelling with kids is going to be hard at some point. They will cry, they will complain, and you will both over and underestimate their abilities.
For most of the trip, my plan was to visit the plentiful national parks and do short walks (usually a mile or less). In retrospect, I should have reduced the walking and focused instead on places to stop and interact with the world without being required to follow a trail. My son is a good walker.... my daughter not so much, and even my son started asking to stay in the car after a few days. They did better when they could play with rocks, sand and/or water, choosing their own boundaries and endpoint.
As far as my daughter went, we had a stroller, and I was surprised by how many paved and stairless trails there were--of course, most places try to be wheelchair friendly these days, which is wonderful. But I knew we would want to go beyond stroller territory at some points, and I went through every trick in my book of how to get children to walk and learned a few others. We knew we'd have to carry her at some points, but I would try and define my limits to this (I'm going to carry you as far as that big rock and then put you down). When she started whining, I would point out some feature up ahead, to try and make the route itself interesting (we're about to go over a bridge, through a tunnel, under a branch).
Chipmunks were our friend, since she'd always chase after one; sadly, they can't be relied upon to go in the right direction! Giving food or drink was a good way to settle her down with the drawback that she'd then go at a snail's pace. Walking along the top of a wall beside the path was always a winner. Finally, she was very attached to the small rolling luggage she had on the plane, and if she could pull that along the path behind her, she would walk a reasonable distance--daft as it looked to everybody else hiking along the trail in their backpacks!
The Itinerary (click on the links to navigate to the relevant post)
Grand Canyon
Day 1: Arrived in Las Vegas; Hoover Dam; Spent the night in Williams.
Day 2: Grand Canyon, South Rim; Spent the night in Flagstaff.
Day 3: Meteor Crater; Petrified Forest/Painted Desert; Spent the night in Flagstaff.
Day 4: Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, Tuba City Dinosaur Tracks, Navajo Bridge; Spent the night at Bryce Canyon.
Day 5: Bryce Canyon National Park; Coral Pink Sand Dunes Park; Spent the night in Springdale.
Day 6: Zion National Park; Spent the night in Las Vegas.
Las Vegas
Various attractions along the Las Vegas Strip
Town Square
Lied Discovery Children's Museum
Springs Preserve
Red Rock Canyon
(Skip to Grand Canyon Road Trip or Las Vegas)
We haven't been a family-holiday family. Every year, we take a trip to the UK and spend two weeks meeting up with friends and family from all over England (and part of Scotland and Wales). Last year, we went to Orlando, piggybacking onto my husband's business trip. Though it meant that my husband didn't join us for most of the sight-seeing, it worked wonderfully well, and we were keen to take advantage of other business trips and conferences as a budget way of travelling (my husband's travel expenses and many of our living expenses are covered).
So when we discovered that my husband had a conference in Las Vegas the week following the children's spring break, we seized the opportunity with both hands. We flew out a week early, and spent the spring break week road tripping around the Grand Canyon, before spending the following week in Vegas. My husband had to take some leave, and the children missed a week of school, but we had five days of visiting natural wonders together, and it was amazing!
Planning
Our children are two and four years old, so they were our biggest limitation / consideration on this trip. There are some incredible things you can do in this part of the world, but they're not for small children--I kept saying I'd love to do this holiday again in ten years because we could have a totally different experience.
On the other hand, five and a half days to road trip around the Grand Canyon isn't enough to make the most of it either, so we were going to be limited anyway. I was less interested in Las Vegas, and figured (correctly) that the children would be exhausted by that point, so I didn't plan that portion of the trip particularly... I improvised when we got there.
Although we did better than I expected about having the children in bed by 7pm most nights, the change of routine and environment (and, in my daughter's case, having to nap in the car) was too much for them. The cheaper flights tend to be at horrible hours, and while we made it work, it was a lot for the children to recover from, and my two year old daughter never really did. My four year old son handled it beautifully for the first three days, and then the strain started to tell on him. Both enjoyed the different experiences, don't get me wrong, but meltdowns were frequent and they required a lot of patience and care to keep them going.
I planned our trip via Google. I'd use their maps to figure out driving distances between cities, and then search "What to do with toddlers in [city]?" For the most part, I tried to have no more than two hours of driving between bursts of activity (I think our longest stretch was four hours between Hoover Dam and Williams, but we did that in the evening and broke it up with a meal at Kingman.)
To make the trip more child-friendly, my focus ended up being sightseeing, as opposed to activities like rafting, climbing, pony-trekking, or learning about the indigenous people and history of the area. Fortunately, this part of the world is a four year old boy's dream, with deserts, canyons, mountains, a volcanic field and a meteor crater to go and gets hands on with.
Practicalities
To state the bleeding obvious, travelling with kids is going to be hard at some point. They will cry, they will complain, and you will both over and underestimate their abilities.
For most of the trip, my plan was to visit the plentiful national parks and do short walks (usually a mile or less). In retrospect, I should have reduced the walking and focused instead on places to stop and interact with the world without being required to follow a trail. My son is a good walker.... my daughter not so much, and even my son started asking to stay in the car after a few days. They did better when they could play with rocks, sand and/or water, choosing their own boundaries and endpoint.
As far as my daughter went, we had a stroller, and I was surprised by how many paved and stairless trails there were--of course, most places try to be wheelchair friendly these days, which is wonderful. But I knew we would want to go beyond stroller territory at some points, and I went through every trick in my book of how to get children to walk and learned a few others. We knew we'd have to carry her at some points, but I would try and define my limits to this (I'm going to carry you as far as that big rock and then put you down). When she started whining, I would point out some feature up ahead, to try and make the route itself interesting (we're about to go over a bridge, through a tunnel, under a branch).
Chipmunks were our friend, since she'd always chase after one; sadly, they can't be relied upon to go in the right direction! Giving food or drink was a good way to settle her down with the drawback that she'd then go at a snail's pace. Walking along the top of a wall beside the path was always a winner. Finally, she was very attached to the small rolling luggage she had on the plane, and if she could pull that along the path behind her, she would walk a reasonable distance--daft as it looked to everybody else hiking along the trail in their backpacks!
The Itinerary (click on the links to navigate to the relevant post)
Grand Canyon
Day 1: Arrived in Las Vegas; Hoover Dam; Spent the night in Williams.
Day 2: Grand Canyon, South Rim; Spent the night in Flagstaff.
Day 3: Meteor Crater; Petrified Forest/Painted Desert; Spent the night in Flagstaff.
Day 4: Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, Tuba City Dinosaur Tracks, Navajo Bridge; Spent the night at Bryce Canyon.
Day 5: Bryce Canyon National Park; Coral Pink Sand Dunes Park; Spent the night in Springdale.
Day 6: Zion National Park; Spent the night in Las Vegas.
Las Vegas
Various attractions along the Las Vegas Strip
Town Square
Lied Discovery Children's Museum
Springs Preserve
Red Rock Canyon
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