Potty Training

Bearing in mind that Humaira is past 2 years and 4 months and she's quite a smart girl, I didn't think that toilet-training would be so much work. Luckily, I had my support team comprising of my mum and hubby on my side.

Although experts always tell you to look out for signs that the child is ready, I must admit that Humaira did not meet many of their criteria. I even took this test which said that she wasn't ready at all! She wasn't holding her pee a few hours at a time. She wasn't indicating when she had to pee with facial expressions, although, of course we knew when she had to poop because she'll be holding on to me for dear life. But what the heck. I thought this was the best time as any and I was considering the following:

- I am still on holiday and would naturally have the time to train her;
- My mum potty-trained us (her children) before we were 1 and isn't 2 years and 4 months a little old to still be on a diaper?;
- With the second one on the way, I thought that it would be good on our finances to have only one person on diapers (not including myself of course..hah);
- I am jealous of this kid's mother at her school who has her girl toilet-trained (even though that girl is slightly older).

So on the selected Saturday, I got her off diaper cold turkey in the morning. Naively I thought that I would get it over and done with by Sunday so that she could go to school on Monday and I'd get to tell her teacher ta-dah! that she's been toilet-trained over the weekend. NOT!

We had already gotten her a pair of training pants and despite asking her umpteen times if she wanted to pee, I spent the day washing and collecting urine covered pants and clothes and bedsheets and mopping floors. Don't get me wrong. She was a trooper for sitting at her potty and would get a star on her chart everytime she did so but there was just that little thing about actually peeing in it which she hates. She'd rather hold it in and let it go just minutes after she sat on her potty and cry because she had made a mess. But as per everyone's advice, you just have to keep smiling at her while mopping up pee and stop yourself from screaming.

Second day went better as her pee actually made it into the potty twice and thrice on the floor. On day three, she kind of regressed and I was going out of my mind with all the washing and cleaning that's going on that I was ready to literally throw in (or out) the towel.But mum and hubby kept me at it, assuring me that we were making progress.

On day four - voila! The girl got most of her pee into the toilet and we although at that time, we cued her to pee (every 3 hours for non-rainy days and every 1-2 hours for rainy days), she's an expert now and tells us when she needs to go. And we have even stopped bringing her potty out in public because she can just seat at the adult seat.

I would relate this experience to starting breastfeeding. It's difficult at first but you have to keep at it and somewhere along the fourth day- it would be alright. We're just finishing up her supply of diapers now for nights because she's not consistent with that yet. Otherwise, I'm home free!

Next, to get rid of her fetish for blue eyeshadow.