The Toilet UN-Training

In my profession as an early childhood educator, I have long seen parents who want their kids to be on their own at a very young age. Some want their kids to roll on the floor, sit on a chair, walk, run, jump, talk and whatnot. Unfortunately, pooping has never escaped from those parental aspirations to their infants! I say infants. Yes you've read me, INFANTS!

Experts have this intelligent term for this, they call it 'milestone.' I call it 'readiness.'

One fine morning I was on my check-up with my obgyne. His secretary humbly-bragged about her child started going to the toilet at age 1. At least her child turned toddlerhood learning that skill to go to the toilet on her own. I say bravo to her!  But I dont know what was the story behind nor does it matter to me. When my daughter came into this world, I remember that secretary's awesome story about her child. I had this wishful thinking, I hope that'll happen to my child too! I have read some Hollywood celebrities about their own child being toilet-trained as early as 5 months! That prompted me to ask myself, 'hey! what's going on with the world!"

Confusion sets-in. My faith about my profession in early childhood went from being knowledgeable to questionable. True indeed, when it comes to your own, a lot of things are going on. It seems like your own knowledge as a teacher are also put into test! I wondered should I toilet-train, should I buy a potty-trainer, should I wake her up in the middle of her sleep to pee, should I apply the 15-minute bladder-break....those things came in. But there was one thing that made me define that thin line between mothering and teaching. I stopped and let go.

In school, I was faced with parents who loved to give us love letters of time-schedules on their child without considering our class schedules happening everyday. Aside from our routines, we had to check if that child had peed on time instructed to us by their dear parents. I know, I know, it sounded so daunting. But what to do, we are also somehow responsible for "teaching" these kids to "know" when to poop or pee! (But really, it against my personal belief).

Back to my personal experience, there was an episode that I had to let her sit on the toilet every 15-30 minutes. But after few attempts, I felt I was distracting her. I felt I was running her world. I did not put so much belief on her own sense of readiness. Well, it was kinda disrespectful I did not like it.

Before she turned 18months, she already passed motion on the toilet bowl. Since infancy, we always run to the toilet (adult toilet bowl) to let her poop. I couldn't say if that was wrong or not, but it somehow gave me the idea that whatever the child gets used to (including pooping on the toilet), that doesn't really hurt them. In my case, running to the toilet was not a strict training that I wanted to implement on her, but it was something that I associate to hygiene issue. From then on, she loved to poop in the toilet without me forcing her and giving her the fear to sit down on that huge toilet bowl.

Here comes the peeing part. I really did not bother about it. I wasn't even expecting her to get diaper-weaned as early. She did it by herself and always asked me to bring her to the toilet to pee by age 2. Before she successfully slept overnight without nappies on, I had to take off her diaper at night to avoid diaper-rash, but that practice made her not wanting to just pee-away all night. She pees before bedtime and pees first thing upon waking up. There was no soiled bed, no soiled blankets or pillows. However, there was a lot of cleaning and wiping on the floor every now and then before her successful nappy-weaning. Until such time she learned that making me clean after she pees on the floor is not giving a happy-time to mommy! She rewarded me by telling me to pee everytime she wants!

From then on, I already had to cut my diaper budget for her each month!

Just have faith, and do a little bit of a trick to assist them get away with nappies...you'll get there without a fuss!