Showing posts with label Toileting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Toileting. Show all posts

Thursday, December 6, 2012

So busy

Hello all! Did you miss me?

Well I missed you! I hope all is going well at your end. At our end we are just flat out busy. That funny time of the year (Christmas) has snuck up on me! Since my last post, which was well, a rant. Life in general has accelerated. We signed the contract for our house build last week. With Christmas, just around the corner nothing is expected to happen until the new year. This is fine with us, we are just happy to go into Christmas knowing all the design is 99% completed. I say 99% because we still need to decide on the flooring and I might have to change some windows...... anyway I digress.

Here's an update

Toilet Learning

We have taken a giant leap forward and tiny steps backwards.
  1. Both A and G are waking in the morning dry. Yes, that's right both! A has been for months now, but G has just cottoned on to this toilet learning business. In the last two weeks she has been waking up with a dry nappy and using the potty for her first wee of the day. In the past it has been pretty hit and miss. Some days she goes other days there is no need, because she has a full nappy.
  2. I say potty time and they both go to the potty. 80% of the time they use the potty.
  3. Last week both girls took themselves (without been prompted) to the potty and used it! It was a moment of much excitement (for me.)
  4. They now insist on carrying the potty insert to the toilet to tip into the toilet. Some days they make it all the way without any mishaps. Other days....... we have to clean up (sigh), but they have to help.
Toilet learning is easier as we are into our warmest part of the year. So the best time for us to really focus on toilet learning. It also helps that they spend most of the day in training pants or nude. I am currently showing them how to pull up and down the training pants.

Purposeful Work

With the warm weather there is more outside time in the afternoon. Lots of water play and purposeful work clean windows, toys, cube chairs and outside play gym. The cleaning of the cube chairs is an activity we do every few days. Today they learnt how to use the trigger gun on the hose, much to their delight. Their cube chairs were hosed down again, and again, and again, and again.

Language

Oh wow! Their vocabulary has exploded, and so has their ability to understand. Conversely, there are a lot more tantrums, they become frustrated when they want something and can't express what it is they want. We are working on other ways they can show me, like flash cards and baby sign.

A and G have also started chatting to each other. They seem to know exactly what their sibling is say. Unfortunately I do not understand their chatter.

We are going on holiday!

Hooray!! Next week we are departing on a three week driving holiday. We are driving from Brisbane to Melbourne (and back). To visit my family. We are taking our time it is a long drive. It's not a drive for the faint hearted, especially with children. I spent the last few weeks preparing for our trip. I've purchased a number of activities for in the car. I hope to share these with you next week before I go. So out of interest, have you taken a long care trip with your wee ones? What worked for you? What in car activities did you have/do? My wee ones are only 17 months, so some activity just don't work..... such as I spy and counting cars.  If you have any suggestions I would love to read them!

Take care.




Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Toilet Learning Twins - Part 4 - Prepared Environment

Baby Bjorn Smart Potty - Click Image to Close

Baby Bjorn Smart Potty from The EC Store
 
We have three potties and all of our potties are Baby Bjorn Smart Potties. Two in white and one red. The white potties are set up at the potty station. I have to admit the location as moved several times since the beginning our toilet learning adventures. The red one is for emergency catches.

The main reason I brought potties and included potty time as part of our routine was A. A has been waking most mornings dry since she was 10 months old. The only occasions she has been wet in the morning has been illness, teething, when she is unsettled, and a few day after she started walking. So our toilet learning has been lead by her.

Toilet Learning and Public Outings

Today we went to our multiple play group to hang out with all the other twins and their mums and dads. During this outing I made the conscious decision to take A & G to the toilet. The play group is held at a local church and they have a toilet for wee people. I went over to A, said "potty time." Then I went to G, and said the same, "potty time".

Monday, October 8, 2012

Toilet Learning Twins- Part 3 - Training Pants

Training pants are the bane of my life. Honestly, if you are early toilet learning or practising Elimination Communication, the options for training pants or little undies is rather limited in the department stores. Also purchasing a pair of training pants in a small size has proven to be a challenge in some of the online stores, as the stock is either sold out or unavailable. For what it is worth here is my training pants adventures so far.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Toilet Learning Twins Part 2 - Cloth Nappies


Before A & G arrived, I surfed the Internet looking for information on cloth nappies. Boy oh, boy! There is so much information on cloth nappies, I was overwhelmed.  I just could not decide what to buy, so in the end I didn't buy any cloth nappies at all. I did own those flat square terry towel nappies (which I used as burp and clean up cloths.)

In the first three months of my twins lives they were in disposal nappies, whilst I adjusted to our new life as a family of four. When the girls were about 4 months I started researching cloth nappies again, and yes, I was still very confused about what to buy. I really wanted to spend my money wisely and on the right nappy system for us. The weather was warming up at this time, so I started to let the girls have more nappy free time, but continued to use disposables for night time and going out. Honestly they were in disposable a lot more than I would have liked them to be. At this time I hadn't read anything on ECing. Perhaps if I had they would have had more nappy free time than they did and I would have been more in tune with their toileting ques.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Toilet Learning Twins - Part 1 - Our Beginning

As I've planned out how I would cover our toileting journey, I realised there is more and more information I want to add. To ensure this flows and so you have some context to make sense of our journey I have divided this into different parts and will link each section as they are posted.
  • Toileting Pre-reading  - posted here
  • Part 1 - Our beginning - posted
  • Part 2 - Cloth nappies - posted here
  • Part 3 - Training pants - posted here
  • Part 4 - Prepared Environment for toileting  - posted here
Background

I came across Montessori when G started crawling and I wondered how I was going to survive two moving babies. I had heard of Montessori before, but I thought it was aimed only at the 3+ age group. Since discovering Montessori I have made changes around the home which I know have made life at home easier. In terms of toileting, I always planned on cloth. I was a cloth baby, if cloth was good enough for me, why not my children? What I didn't know at the time was how much the cloth nappy market had evolved. Talk about information over load!

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Toilet Learning - Pre Reading

There are so many wonderful sites covering Toilet Learning. I'm not one to reinvent the wheel and since  others on the Internet have written some informative and comprehensive information on toileting the Montessori way I will not be covering this in my toileting posts. So without any further ado, here are some links related to toilet learning.

Happy reading