I just have to say, I never dreamed I would still be fighting the "accident" battle this often with a 4-year old... anyone have any great words of wisdom?
(Disclaimer: This post comes after she stood in the store and peed in her pants, all over their carpet, without ever saying a word to me about needing to go.)
1 comment:
hey there - I'm a friend/reader of Ashley's blog and saw the title of your post on her blog roll....
My oldest little guy (almost 4) was a loooong time training. We tried several approaches and what finally worked for him was 2 fold - rewards and responsibility.
REWARD:
We kept track on a chart how many 'dry' days he had in a row and when he got to a certain number (increased as he got better) we took a trip to somewhere special - to the mall, chucky cheese, fun city....somewhere JUST for him and he got to choose. And every time he went to the potty on his own he got an m&m (1 for pee-pee 2 for poopy)
Responsibility:
He was in charge of cleaning himself up after accidents - (I supervised of course) I taught him how to take off his soiled clothes (dump remains in toilet if needed) and take them to the laundry room, wash up with wet wash cloth and re-clothe. This was probably the biggest motivator for him because it was so much work and time for him where he would MUCH rather be doing something else - and I found it to be a good lesson for him too in learning to take care of his body as well as listen to it's signals.
If he had 2 or more accidents really close together in one day I usually got the pull ups or a diaper back out - which was a bummer for him because he was really enjoying the 'big boy' underwear.
hope this helps...
fellow mamma in the trenches,
Heidi
Post a Comment