Developmental Delays

The potty training is not going well. She does OK in school, but at home she has good days and bad. The problem is that I can't take my eyes off of her because if I do, I'm likely to miss the signs that she has to go and she'll have an accident. I really don't think she gets it. Except for the fact that I've hated all the big kid diapers we've tried and she's getting way too heavy for me to be changing her diapers, I'd be inclined to put her back in diapers full time. I think when we have a chance we're going to do another intensive potty training weekend where we push fluids and never leave the house. The first weekend (that got us to this point) was an absolute nightmare and I wanted to quit the first day. DH was my hero and did most of the work. Unfortunately, I spend a lot more time alone with her so now a lot of the burden falls on me. That wouldn't be so bad if it were just her, but I have two other little kids and I have to pay attention to them, too.

Which leads me to the next issue... I'm pregnant. This was totally unplanned and unexpected (we didn't think we could get PG without fertility treatments) and we're thrilled, but right now I'm exhausted. I have absolutely no energy to be following her around and rushing her to the toilet every time she has an accident or acts like she's about to. In a little over 7 months she's going to have a new sibling and I don't want to go back to having 3 in diapers. I'm hoping Ben might be out of diapers by then, but he'll be just over 2, so I'm not counting on it.

I'm just so frustrated that just when we really need to step up the efforts, I don't have any energy to do it.

CONGRATS!! sorry you are so frustrated. Potty training my typical kid nearly made me insane so I'm sure its so hard. I hope your energy will pick up soon and make things easier atleast for a while. That is so exciting about the new addition. Wish I had advice for you but all I can say is you have come this far, try to stick with it. What about pull ups?

Kari

Kristin 7/08

Hi, I mostly lurk, but had to delurk for this post.

Congratulations..... AND a hug! How exciting to have a new baby coming, but I know how tired you must be. I was 8 mo pg with my son when Michelle (my speech/language impaired & LD kiddo) was still in diapers. She was a tough one, but I was determined. At 8+ mo pg I found myself spending hours at a time sitting on the bathroom floor because Michelle refused to "go". She never had any accidents because she was the queen at holding it. The problem was that she just didn't understand the concept of going to the bathroom when explained to her in words. She was in pain and in tears sitting on the toilet holding it after not going for almost 8 hrs one day when she just couldn't hold it any more and a flood came out of her. She got a big "hip hip hooray" and a bowl of m&ms. My son was born 2 weeks later (2 weeks early). Phew!

Kathryn

We have just accomplished getting Rowan 90% trained. I would say 100 but he still has the odd accident in the bathroom when he can't get undressed fast enough. We accomplished this by getting a pediatric commode for our living room.  It doesn't look pretty but it is where he is. This and smarties for rewards worked for us. He uses the commode now on his own which is huge and we take him to the bathroom when we have asked him if he has to go. Our next goal is to get rid of the commode.  We got our OT to requisition it for us. Our timeline was that we started potty training with it right at the start of school and saw really good success. We had tried many times before this with hardly any success. I think we were always losing the battle that from the time he said he had to go till I would get him there was to long.

COngrats on the new little one as well!!!!

Marcia