I never did a follow-up for potty training boy #2 and that's warranted. Surely I don't remember everything from doing this with #1, but boy oh boy does this feel like more of a challenge. We love him to death but our son is an incredibly strong-willed, defiant and frustrating child. He's had multiple major backslides where he forgets how to use the bathroom for days at a time, making me wonder if he ever learned in the first place and it's only my prompting that makes it appear to work. It's been a major roller coaster that always seems to hit low points just as progress looks achievable. I'm more than a little tired of randomly going through four outfits in a day. My wife thinks much of this is due to mood and is one of his ways of acting out when his sister is getting too much attention, for one example, and she's probably right. As seen with other aspects of his life he's frequently smarter and more capable than he lets on, and my guess is he (to some extent) does this on purpose for one reason or another. If we stay diligent and calm we'll get there.
Enough on that. What I most want to do, in this context, is share a sometimes funny, sometimes very annoying part of this battle.
Shortly after ditching diapers we also took the side off his crib, allowing more freedom. This was a terrifying move that we put off for a while but in the subsequent weeks there were no problems. He stayed right there in bed, where we tucked him in, and we even had to go get him up in the morning. Habits are hard to break I guess. The situation changed drastically after this year's trip to Alaska, however, where he shared a room with his brother. The two of them came out of the room on their own in the morning and a new behavior was learned. He could get out of bed himself, he wasn't stuck in there! Since returning bedtime has become an ordeal.
Most nights now he gets out of bed and opens the door at least ten times. We've put a baby gate in his doorway, so he can get out of bed and open the door but not come out into the hallway (we unlock it once he goes to sleep). This means he spends a great deal of time after we say good night standing at the gate and, in a crescendo, telling then yelling why he needs to come back out again. The vast majority of the time there's only one theme.
'Need to go poop and pee in the potty,' he says, often in a rhythm that almost makes it a song. Each night I'll let him out once and it's hit or miss whether or not he needs to go. Sometimes there's nothing and clearly he's just playing a game with an absolutely devious smile on his face. Other nights, maybe most nights, he actually does go and its hard to wholly call him the boy who cried wolf. But then, minutes later he'll say it again, exactly the same way. I send him back into his room and shut the door, over and over, eventually telling him vocally to do it himself. This usually results in screaming and lots of crying as he's facing defeat. But we'll go through it all again the next night anyway.
There was one other tact he tried, though it was just a grosser variation of the same thing. It had come out once or twice before but he really went for it on a night when my wife was gone and I was attempting to put all three kids to bed myself. This is when he opened the door and shouted 'poop on my finger!' about as loud as he could. I, assuming this was actually the case, did not, er, react well, somewhat angrily taking him out of his room and berating him a bit while washing his hands before putting him back. I understand now, out of the moment, that all he saw was a strong reaction because, well, he tried it again a few minutes later. This time I took him out and washed his hands again and took away his sound machine, thinking that taking something he really liked would make a difference. Nope. The next time I took away his music box (it's music chaos in there at night). When he tried it a fourth time that same night, coming the door offering up his pillow before I even got there, I realized my plan wasn't going to work. The next night my wife handled it much better, basically smelling his hands and calling his bluff, and luckily this line at least has been stopped. It's good to take turns and learn from each other.
This post is already a little out of date, as he's been trying new stuff the last few nights after our return from California (it's crazy how much travel shakes up kid's routines), but there was a solid 4-6 weeks where this was our reality every night. He only had one card to play, I need to go to the bathroom, and he was going to play it as many times as he could to get attention and prolong his day. Hopefully at some point he learns he only needs to keep his door shut and be reasonably quiet after we say good night. That's all we're asking.
Comments