the "funny potty seat" & independent toileting

our current rental home has a non-standard loo, so the toilet seat adapter that we had been using perfectly fine before, does not fit snuggly on this one and slips. the bean often complained "mama i'm sinking!" when the adapter seat shifted under her weight and a part of it sank into the bowl. apart from this fit issue, the bean finds it difficult to climb onto the loo because she's, well, vertically challenged.

she therefore prefered to use her portable potty instead of the grown-up loo because of all the above issues.

so, when we went to a baby equipment shop recently to get some car seat boosters for the bean's cousins (they're coming over from balmy england to see us in may), i scouted round the store to see if there was a suitable loo solution for the bean.

et voila!
it's a bambino toilet trainer that folds up and stands against a wall when not in use but otherwise, the bean has been able to unfold it, put it on the loo and climb up and down it by herself.

she sometimes goes on her own without telling me first now, but usually she gives me a holler to let me know that she needs to do a wee/poo. when she comes off it she then goes on the little step stool to wash her hands. thus, now she can do her toileting all on her own.

she calls it the "funny potty". e.g. "mummy, can i use the funny potty seat? i like it. it works very well." (she's a hoot!)

it has been a really good investment as an independence-developing tool. i think it's super.

p/s. oh, on the occasions when she uses the portable potty, she often brings it to the loo to empty it by herself. then she washes her hands. i woke up one morning to hear her conduct the entire process, after which she came into the bedroom to play/change clothes.

yes, sir & plops

for the past couple of days the bean has been responding to my demands or queries just like how a tank engine would to sir topham hatt (aka the fat controller from thomas & friends).

a few samples...

me: would you like some blueberries?
bean: yes suh!

me: do you want to poo on the big potty?
bean: yes suh! i try.

me: do you want some sushi?
bean: yes suh!

and yes, the bean has begun opting to do her #2s in the big potty now (it was her 2nd time this afternoon), so we are definitely 'seeing the light' at the end of our toilet training 'tunnel'. (if one is allowed such convoluted but strangely apt metaphors.)

and uh...she likes the sound the poo makes as it drops into the bowl - "plop!" "three plops, mama!"

purple pants & the big potty

some good news to report on the toilet-training front...

a) the bean has now been in panties (instead of nappies) for 1 week now. once she realised how much more comfy trainers are to nappies (with their bulk), she's insisted on wearing panties all the time. (although we put her in all-in-one nappies for night sleeps still.)

there is the occasional 'accident', when she'd come tell me she needs to go wee wee after she'd done it. but i try to stave off these incidents by prompting her very regularly: e.g. after breakfast, before heading out the house, coming home, after dinner or snacks etc.

b) although we have been ready to put the bean on the "big potty" (i.e. the adult potty) for some time - what with buying at least 2 children's toilet seats for her use - she was weepily resistant to using it, adamant to stick to her "small potties". in fact, she was so resistant to the whole idea, she actually threw a HUGE tantrum after i'd tried her on it for a few days, saying, "no more, mummy, okay? i don't sit on big potty."

but we had a breakthrough recently. our montessori under 3s facility has only 1 restroom - with a kid's toilet seat for use. i'd been observing the bean carefully the whole morning and noticed that she was getting a bit antsy and that enough time had elapsed from the last wee to warrant a visit to the restroom asap. so i brought her there. she was willing to come with me. but once i told her that there wasn't a small potty, only a potty with a child's toilet seat, she immediately said, "mummy go wee wee. i don't sit on big potty."

i then gave her a choice. i told her that she could either hold it till we got home, or she could wee in the big potty (with the kid's seat installed). i said that she must not wee in her panties as i would get extremely cross. she was by then halfway to the door then she stopped and came back to me and got onto the big potty! impossible to describe how pleased and proud i was. wanted to tell the whole world about it.

anyhow, since that fateful wednesday morning, she has been happy to sit on the big potty. i would now say that she uses it about 60% of the time.

...YAY!

obnoxious behaviour?

the bean is definitely exerting her will these days; found her ego and is using it to the max.

take this afternoon. when i found the bean had moved onto a different activity, i asked if she'd finished playing with her lego set that she'd left sitting on the floor (with the implication that she should therefore pack it away), she said, "no. (pause) i busy at the moment." (!!!)

i am also finding it difficult to get her to go to the potty willingly lately. when we wake each morning it is a lottery game of whether she'd like to perform her ablutions or whether i have to use a combination of coercion and bribery to get acquiescence.

i can almost believe that the middle east "problem" could be easier to resolve than my daughter's intransigence!

another horrible development is her preference for "pink". i suspect that the bean has probably absorbed this insidious virus through observation of other little girls. for the past week or so she'd ask to wear pink-coloured clothes. i have taken to calling some shades of pink "violet" and "lilac" in the vain hope of expanding her repertoire - both in vocabulary and sartorially.

i don't care much for the opinion that it is natural for girls to like pink. it is an unfounded theory that is truly sexist. there is too much out there that is mono-coloured pink (albeit in various hideous shades) all marketed to girls and parents from infancy. it is brainwashing by media and commerce.

everybody poos

"everybody poos" is the title of a book by a japanese author. it's a nice one to teach the bean that all animals and people poo, and that people poo in special places.

a couple of weeks ago she took this lesson really to heart and would inform anyone who would listen that "everybody wees" as well as "everybody poos".

this morning, when i strapped her into the car seat, i told her not to wee there (she was only wearing a swim nappy - offers no protection to my car at all), and she gave me a 'of course i know that' look and said immediately, "wee wee in potty!" - i was both relieved and proud.

and more, sort of, on this subject...

when her nai nai and ye ye were still visiting us (they've sadly returned to the uk), the bean would go to their room in the mornings and greet them.

one particular morning, her ye ye had got of the shower and was alone in the bedroom when he heard a little voice pipe up, "ye ye got bottom!"

he turned around to see the bean beaming at him, to which he could only reply, "yes, everybody has a bottom."

peek-a-boo / dress with poo

some interesting achievements:

1) peek ah boo
this morning, whilst her daddy was at his ablutions, the bean decided to play a trick on him. first, she went up to say 'hi', then after a moment, she loudly called out, "bye!" before walking out the bathroom. almost immediately though she was back to say, "peek ah boo!"
dh thought it hilarious and he was, i suspect, rather proud of her.

2) dress in poo
since today was the hottest it's been for the past 1.5 weeks, i deliberately left the bean nappy-less for most of the day and placed her 2 potties (yes, there are 2) in plain view of her play area.

the whole morning she avoided the potties quite steadily until the moment i was engaged somewhere else. when i came back to the living area i was surprised (albeit delighted too) to find her sitting on her potty. unfortunately, her nice jersey dress was tucked under her!

i went over to pull out the back hem of the dress and as i did so, what i feared might happen did occur: out plopped a nugget onto the carpet. sigh.

i didn't lose my cool over this as the bean did what she was supposed to do afterall, i.e. to poo in her potty, and she filled it admirably. so it's mummy's lesson: i have to put her in t-shirts instead of dresses.

p/s. i can't remember when it started but the bean is now calling me "ma ee" instead of "ba", the latter having been her name for me for the longest time - probably since she started making specific sounds to mean things actually.

the bean defies mummy

for some weird reason, the bean has decided that she would rather not say the word green anymore.

lately (past 3 days or so), whenever i point at something that's green and ask her what colour it is, she would mumble something that sounds like "yellow" (a much garbled "grau grau" sound). and one time, she even made an annoyed "tsk" sound before ignoring me.

this comes after she kept blissfully saying "gweeeeeeeeen" for a few days. i wonder why she's turned off "green" and if she's turned off more from the questions about the colour.

she would, however, happily tell me the name of (most) any other colour: purple, red, blue, on occasion even yellow. she can't pronounce orange yet; i just accept whatever utterance she gives me even if it sounds nothing like it.

btw, a note on poop. lately, she has decided that if she is too busy watching tv or playing with her toys, then she would prefer to say no to the potty and poop in her nappy! it's happened at least twice in 2 weeks.

just 2 days ago she was fidgeting whilst playing with her peg board, so i told her i would get the potty to her. she made a sound of protest but kept focused on her activity. when i came back to her with her potty i made a perfunctory "do you want to sit on your potty?" to which she replied, "no."

my rejoinder was "of course you'd say that" and proceeded to put her on it nonetheless.

her po po, who is visiting us at the moment, laughed and said that the bean had nodded her head to the same question when she asked her a minute ago though.

anyhow, even though she told me "no", the bean did very successfully fill the entire potty - whilst playing with her peg board game.

my mom said that the bean's asserting her will now and to brace myself for more protests, confrontations and back-talks.

sigh...the terrible 2s have really begun.

"no no no" + poo-poohing poo + sleeping through the night

during and after her illness, most of the Bean's latest words have been double syllabic. E.g. "purple", her current favourite colour; i think because she can pronounce it. she doesn't say "red" or "green" or "yellow". she can say "blue" though, calling red and green "blue" too!

then for the past 2-3 days she has finally begun uttering the dreaded 2-letter word: N-O. it is sort of every parent's nightmare: will this usher in the era of the Terrible Twos? does this mean she is going to assert her prerogative through denials of everything?

so far though, it has been helping her help me make decisions, which means i can offer her other options, narrowing the field.
to wit:
do you want to read this book? "no."
do you want to wear this pair of socks? "no."
do you want to eat your cruskit? "no no no."

we shall see if her newfound 'negativity' will lead to actual pitched battles (albeit of limited vocabulary).

with the illness behind us, the Bean is back on her potty, pooping properly, although she tends to be pooping in the evenings right before falling asleep.

and here's another happy matter to report: the Bean is sleeping through the night! yippee kai yeee!

two mondays ago i weaned her off night feeds* by pretending to be asleep and ignoring her snuffling and whimpering and crying for about half an hour. she got tired after a while and fell back asleep again, to wake only at around 7-ish a.m. for her morning milk feed.

she does sometimes still wake up suddenly (either fully or half-wake) in the middle of the night, but it is usually just the one time, then she goes back to sleep again after some patting and if i let her hold my hand. however, this too is occurring less and less now.

it is fabulous as it means that there is now continuous sleep for me at night.

* i still let her feed to sleep. this means that overall, we've cut down our bf to around 3-4 feeds on a 24 hr cycle: a pre-breakfast feed, post-lunch nap feed, sometimes another afternoon feed before tea, and a good night feed.

recent viral troubles

We had a couple of trying weeks not long ago, which partly explains the blog silence (but not fully), with the Bean contracting a viral infection that led to a bacterial one.

That meant what I thought was just a gunky runny nose (that lasted nearly 4 weeks) became something more serious when she began throwing up and having very high fevers (at one point reaching over 39 degrees celsius).

The GP was consulted. Apparently all babies and young children throw up when they get too hot. It is their bodies's natural reaction, to cool down by expelling liquids. The doc also said that the Bean may become constipated because of the loss of fluids and appetite. She suggested that I try watermelon or a sweet fruit before trying her on her usual meals. The sweetness will whet her appetite. We were given a prescription for antibiotics but told not to administer this for a few days till the Bean's situation worsens or if she doesn't get better.

So we waited an excruciating 2-3 more days before finally giving the Bean the antibiotic mixture. Thankfully, and sensibly, this particular antibiotic mixture is actually sweet and doesn't have a nasty bitter aftertaste (unlike the concoction prescribed by a doc in S'pore which was most foul). The Bean took to the medicine very well - it tastes like a banana/fruit shake - and so nearly did the hub unit, who did most of the administering. He really does have a deft way with giving the Bean medicine. It involves pretending to feed her toys, himself and mummy, the medicine before offering a dose to the bub. It usually works a treat. But of course, it helps that this medicine tasted good.

But one nasty effect from the Bean being ill was that she was mainly pooping into her nappies. It was disgusting as alternating with constipation was runny poo - an outcome of eating very very little and drinking mainly water. Her poo was also sticky and dark - gross.

She was even off breastfeeding for around 2-3 days, which was most worrisome. I had counted on nourishing her with breastmilk as was the usual practice whenever she got ill, so this unexpected outcome was troubling. However, it was probably because she had a sore throat. She had passed her illness to me and I also had a sore throat for a few days but I got over it quickly with herbal gargle mixtures and sucking lots of herbal throat lozenges.

Anyhow, she has recovered fully now and it is so wonderful to see her appetite come back. It was terrible to be able to see her ribs and a single chin; I was so used to my chubby girl. But she is putting some flesh back on again, so I am relieved.

a scatalogical report (at 18.5 months)

it's been nearly 10 months of consistently putting the bean on the potty first thing in the morning, and i think she is definitely "potty-trained" in terms of #2s ("poo" rhymes with "two")!

we have yet to fully start catching #1s but the cold weather is our excuse at the moment.

we did have a couple of accidents during these past 10 months:
- she pood in her bath once (this was early on in our 'programme' though)
- she didn't tell me about her wanting to go till midway through and when i was getting her out of her nappy to put her on the potty a little "present" fell out. this actually happened twice in oz: once in the serviced apartment and the other in our new place.
- she's weed in the bath i think 3 times now

but we are making huge progress as she now very clearly tells me when she wants to poo. usually she utters an "uh oh", clutches her nappy area and gives me a stricken look. lately, when i ask her if she wants to sit on her potty her face lights up and she often smiles and nods enthusiastically.

it has often been the case that she won't nap (daytime) or sleep (nighttime) until she has gone on the potty too. i guess it's like any adult really - we can't go to sleep unless we are comfortable and relieved.

just before we moved to australia, we visited my parents in singapore. we had gone out one day and on the way back to my parents' in the car she started to indicate that she wanted to go. we asked if she could hold on till we got home. she was unhappy and tense but she did hold off till we could put her on the potty. this was a few months' ago and it certainly shows that young children CAN control their motions if trained/habituated.

a couple of weeks ago while we were at the beach, we met 2 other mommies with daughters the same age as the bean (a real coincidence). all 3 girls were about the same size too. and all 3 got really wet and sandy and had to be changed at the beach. when the other women saw that i use cloth nappies they asked if it was easier and how did i cope with poos. i told them that with these nappies i just used to 'roll' the poos off into the toilet and flush! and that besides, my daughter had already stopped pooing in her nappies. at the last comment they both looked shocked and asked how did i know when she wants to poo. "she tells me", was my rather surprised reply.

it horrifies me to think of the number of disgusting nappies i'd have to wash if i had NOT started potty training early. EEEWWWW! anyhow, one of the enrolment conditions of the bean's (potential) preschool is that the child be potty-trained. i read somewhere that schools need a special licence or something to admit children who aren't potty-trained. maybe it is to prevent child abuse or it could be a hygiene issue (or both?). so i am hoping that now we are catching #2s, we will get progress to #1s soon...as soon as the weather warms up!

potty training started...

we started tentative potty training on wed 22 november. i'd ordered a transparent potty from mummysmilk.com, which came with a book by laurie boucke (infant potty training) and a pair of brightbots training pants.

we tried out the potty in the late afternoon. leah had only started crawling a few days ago and was a little constipated. but when we (my mum and i) noticed her distinct poo face, we quickly put her on the potty. to our amazement, she pooed immediately.

i decided that i'd try to get her into the habit of going to the potty twice a day at least - once when she wakes up in the morning and the other just before bathtime, after her tea. but i would be more casual about trying to catch her when she wants to wee or poo at other times - if i could get her to the potty in time then well and good, otherwise i wasn't going to try to kill myself (or dd) by rushing her or forcing her to go when she didn't want to.

anyway, it's now been 3.5 weeks since we began potty training, and save for one or two times near the start, she hasn't pooed into her nappy since.

there have also been days when she'd wake up in the mornings with a dry nappy. and she'd go only when i put her on the potty...makes me wonder if it's hurting her kidneys if she holds it in all night though. hmmm...

according to laurie boucke, most babies do communicate their potty needs from infancy, but it's just we have been conditioned to not listen to their signals, and in fact, we've been training them to use their nappies as a toilet instead*. and when i think about it, going into one's nappy is actually rather unhygienic and most uncomfortable.

ms boucke also says that there are a few windows of opportunity to start "elimination communication" - from infancy up to 5 months, then between 8-12 months, and then at 18-24 months.

i was a little worried that at 9-10 months dd might be too old for EC (i.e. too used to her nappies), but it seems dd has cottoned on very quickly.

it's certainly saving laundry, which helps the environment a bit more. we're using cloth nappies rather than disposables anyway, but this goes a bit further.

leah seems to be fine and happy about it too.

*this practice of using nappies till 2-3 years is actually newish for asia. many asian cultures don't or didn't use nappies - parents and caregivers would simply hold babies over the sink or toilet or ditch. that's why children's clothes sometimes have flaps on the bottoms so that they can just squat and go wherever, no different from longjohns!