Potty Training Week 1: Lessons Learned

Well, potty training has definitely had its ups and downs over the past few days.  Here is a list of lessons learned so far:

1. Flip training pant inserts have a girls' way and a boys' way.  My daughter was wearing them the boys' way.
2. Munchkin views going to the loo as a recreational activity. She'll only go if she's near a bathroom and/or someone else wants to go.  When she does something on the toilet, she gets very excited.  Most of the time she goes in her pants because it's quicker.
3. Flip training pants are not as absorbent as disposable pull ups, unless you use multiple inserts.  If you do this, the pants become so bulky, most self respecting toddlers don't want to wear them.
4. Like several other toddlers I know, Munchkin doesn't much care if she's a bit wet.  She was no more keen to get out of soggy training pants than she would have been to get out of an absorbent nappy.
5. The inserts in Flip training pants bunch up in the middle, meaning it's difficult to get the absorbent bit where it's really needed.
6. Our plans to keep Munchkin home all weekend so she could get used to fabric pants backfired.  She got stir crazy and started to regress.
7. Potty training can be really stressful if you don't approach it in a way that works for you and your child.  The last time I felt as bad as I did yesterday, I had post natal depression.
8. Pull ups aren't so bad after all.  I had a long chat with Munchkin and she agreed to wear them.  They've meant we can leave the house, and she can use the toilet whenever she fancies.
9. Portable toilet seats are a godsend.  We have a Toodaloo.  It folds to the size of a couple of nappies and means that Munchkin can sit on any toilet without my having to hold her.
10. My child has a sprinkler attachment.  I have to wipe down her toilet seat after she's finished.

Pants!

Munchkin and I have been too grumpy and busy for blogging recently so you've missed out on two epic tantrums and a family trip to Fisher's Farm.  We'll be going back to Fisher's Farm so I'll blog about that another time.  The least said about the tantrums, the better, though I would like to thank the helpful stranger who got us moved to a later swimming lesson when Munchkin's pool tantrum finally ended.

Munchkin is getting closer and closer to being potty trained.  She doesn't like nappies very much and hates pull-ups but my attempt to put her in standard training pants ended in a puddle, partly because they weren't absorbent enough but mainly because they didn't fit snugly around the legs.  There was no way I could put her straight into knickers, since she was doing half her wees and all her poos in nappies.  I still felt cloth training pants were the answer, but I needed to find the right brand.

I didn't have much idea where to look.  Luckily, Laura from Worthing Nappy Library came to my rescue.  She very kindly contacted other nappy libraries to get recommendations for absorbent training pants.  Two American brands, Super Undies and Bumgenius Flip, were recommended.  Super Undies were out of stock everywhere, which was a shame because they were cheaper and more slimline.  I therefore invested in some Bumgenius.  These pants are adjustable so one size fits age 18 months to 4 years.  They have removable inserts which can be changed if the child has only done a wee.  I initially bought three pairs when they were on offer at The Nappy Lady.  The offer price was £21.49, or thereabouts, for a pair of pants and three inserts.  I wish I'd bought more since I've just paid the full price of £27.99 for additional pairs.  I got the additional pairs from Lizzies Real Nappies because they had a better range of designs, in my opinion.  There seems to be a market for second-hand real nappies so I'm hoping to recoup some of my money when she moves on from these pants.

Munchkin's first pants... They've got bunnies on :-)

We had a nappy dry run yesterday.  Munchkin liked her pants, and it almost was a dry run too.  In three hours, she only did one small wee in them.  They're not as easy to get up and down as I'd hoped so we might have to try loosening them.  I did also put them on back-to-front initially, though I'm not sure I should admit to that...  At the weekend, we'll start potty training properly.  Hopefully I've bought my last daytime nappies.  Angmering Daddy has told Munchkin she can have a Peppa Pig medal when she poos on the toilet... I look forward to making it for her.

Pubs and Puddles

Another weekend, another lunch date for Munchkin...  This time we met up with some former work colleagues.  Since our friends are childless, we always have to pick the venue.  They live in Brighton and don't drive so we generally pick them up and go somewhere in the Brighton or Lewes area.  I stumbled upon a site called Child Friendly Brighton & Hove, which is a godsend for finding Munchkin friendly eateries.

We went to The Half Moon in Plumpton.  The food was really good.  Munchkin and I both had sausage and mash.  We promised to leave some for Daddy to try but it was so nice, we scoffed the lot.  The children's menu was £6 for two courses. The children's dessert was anything you like, as long as it was a scoop of ice cream...  The children's facilities were good, but not as good as we were expecting after the write up on Child Friendly Brighton & Hove, for example there were no crayons and paper on offer.  The play area in the huge garden was great.  Munchkin loved the slide and the sand pits.  However, the pub let itself down on service and we wouldn't rush back for this reason.  Strike 1: Our drinks didn't arrive. It turned out that they'd run out of stout. Rather than telling us, they just forgot our whole drinks order.  Strike 2: The wrong menu had been put out and the dish Angmering Daddy wanted wasn't available.  Strike 3: I couldn't find the baby change promised on CFBH.  The waitress told us they didn't have one so I changed Munchkin on the toilet floor.  I later discovered there was a tiny changing table tucked away in one of the toilet cubicles.

Yesterday was a little dramatic.  Munchkin has finally worked out what the toilet is for so I bought her some training pants.  I've gone for the fabric variety since these are meant to promote quicker potty training.  She had a tantrum and refused to get dressed yesterday morning.  I gave her the choice of a nappy, disposable training pants or the new pants.  She settled on the new ones, but the tantrum didn't subside much.  Five minutes later, I found her standing in a puddle.  Thankfully she'd been thoughtful enough to stay on the changing mat.  Note to self: Training pants hold a small wee, not a torrent.  The morning didn't improve much.  She had a friend round to play and spent the first half hour avoiding her and the second half hour screaming.

Munchkin has a busy Easter weekend ahead of her.  She's going to two Easter egg hunts and may be going on a day trip to Butlins in Bognor and/or a trip to see Thomas the Tank Engine.

Dummies are for dummies

For the third night in a row, Munchkin has gone to bed without a dummy -"a soother" if you're reading this in North America.  Angmering Daddy has been trying to persuade her not to use them for a month or two, with limited success.  I hadn't imagined we'd be at this point so soon since Sweetpea was nearly three when she gave up dummies.  I'm very proud of Munchkin and if this continues, I'll be throwing away all her dummies -she has about ten.

She's been a good girl generally over the past week or so.  Her confidence is coming back after half a term of no gymnastics or swimming.  Last week we managed the gym warm up with no screaming and a small amount of participitation.  Post warm up, she was back to normal and showed off her skills on the big beam - it's lower than a full sized one but there's still room to fall off.  Her late granny, who was a gym coach, would have been really impressed.  She smiled during most of this week's swimming lesson, though she's still lacking confidence and won't do half the things she was doing last term.

I've posted on here about potty training in the past.  These days, Munchkin hates the potty and will only sit on the toilet, using her Peppa Pig toilet seat.  Unforunately she only sits on the toilet, she hasn't done anything on it yet.  Despite repeatedly showing signs of being ready for potty training, we're no closer than we were eight months ago. 

Munchkin's toilet habits have caused me to change nappy brands.  Being environmentally conscious, but wanting an easy life, I've usually opted for eco disposables.  We started out in Beaming Baby, which was great until Munchkin ended up between sizes; their mini nappies leaked but we couldn't do up their midi nappies tightly enough.  I gave up on Beaming Baby and switched to Sainsbury's eco nappies.  These served us well for a year but are now leaking like mad.  I changed from a size 4+ to a 5, which was slightly better but still not great.  I bought some Naty pull-ups, the only other eco brand they sell in Sainsbury's to see what they were like.  They seem much more absorbent so I'll give their regular nappies a go.  I think, until we're really potty training, Munchkin can have a mixture of nappies and pull-ups depending on where we are and what we're doing.  The pull-ups were brilliant yesterday because we went to a family party at a pub with no baby change and they were easy to whip off in the Ladies' without having to lie Munchkin down.

Well, I think that's enough blogging for one week.  I'll try to blog more regularly in future but certain aspects of my writing regularity are just shocking.  I've got three international penfriends whom I haven't written to for almost a year, and a novel in my head that refuses to be put onto paper.