Parents In Real Life

Why does it have to be so hard?

With my first child, we started trying to get him interested in potty training when he was about 2 years old.  We bought him a book and a potty and hoped it was the beginning of his road to a diaper-less life.  No such luck.  He didn’t even want to sit on the potty, much less do anything in it.  We didn’t really start trying again until he was 3 years old.  At that point, we became really serious and gave him pull-ups, then underwear when the pull-ups didn’t help.  We offered him stickers and toys as prizes.  However, he was very inconsistent.  He would sometimes pee, but he would never poop.  One day, I was talking to an old friend and she mentioned that she had just potty-trained her 3 year old son, and she did it by not letting him wear any bottoms.  “What?!”, I asked her.  Wasn’t she afraid of him soiling her floor or couch or bed?  She said no, because she always had a potty near them.

So, I tried it, and it worked.  My son was much more willing to sit on the potty when his bottom was bare.  I was nervous the whole time.  I made sure there was a potty near him wherever he was.  I would make him sit on a towel when he sat on the couch.  I would ask every 15 minutes whether he had to go.  In about a week, he was pretty much trained - pooing and peeing consistently in the potty.  It seemed so easy after months of frustration.  During that first week, he had a few accidents; but after that, he was fully potty trained.

With my second son, we didn’t start introducing him to the potty until he was about 2 1/2.  He would pee once in awhile, but like his older brother, he never pooped.  Then, during the winter break, he just flat out refused to go to the potty.  However, I didn’t push him too hard during this time because in a few months, he would have a new baby brother, and I knew that he might regress anyway with such a big change happening.

A month after the baby was born though, I started again.  I gave him pull-ups at first, then underwear to see if that would help train him better.  He had lots of accidents and he still refused to poop in the potty.  Rewards and stickers weren’t really motivating him.  One month in, I decided to go ahead and use the no-bottoms approach.  He got better and more consistent at going to the potty, but three weeks later we were still cleaning up accidents.  Again, the poop thing took longer to train.  He would go two days peeing in the potty with no accidents, so I would put him in underwear to reward him and show him that I had confidence he was fnally learning.  Then he would poop in his underwear.  He was nice enough to poop when he had underwear on at least.

This week is probably the fourth week since we started the hard-core, no bottoms potty training.  He hasn’t any accidents for the past 4 days now.  He is pooping in the potty, but it’s usually when I ask him to go, as opposed to him asking to go himself.  My second son is taking much longer to be trained than the first one, but I’m hoping he will be fully trained and going on his own accord soon.

Potty training is not something I look forward to, but obviously, it’s necessary and it really is a great accomplishment for both you and your child once you have successfully completed it.  You may just have to try lots of different methods to get it done.  In addition, you have to be patient and know that it will happen.

Wow, I can’t seem to turn my head away from the train wreck disguised as the reality TV couple, Jon and Kate.  I have to admit, I was a big fan of the show.  I began watching last year, and really enjoyed the stories about this unusually large family.  The kids were adorable, and it was interesting to see how Jon and Kate managed the daily grind.  However, when they started going on trips to Disneyworld and Hawaii, I realized that the show was becoming more of a commercial for these various companies and less about the ups and downs of raising children.

Now, with all the tabloids reporting on their troubled marriage and whether or not the kids are suffering from constantly being in front of the cameras, the show is more popular than ever.  I’ve often heard Kate say that she wants to give her children all experiences that she never had.  Without this show, they would never have had the means to do many of the things they’ve done or visited the places they’ve gone to.  I, myself, would love the opportunity to take my kids to Disneyworld to see Mickey or bring them to Hawaii to learn how to surf.  And I ask myself, what would I do in Jon and Kate’s situation?

I would probably agree to do a TV show about my family if it allowed my children to have opportunities they might otherwise not have.  But what if the show caused trouble in my marriage, would I continue to do it then?  I would say no; I would stop the show if it meant saving our family from falling apart.  At least, I hope that’s what I would do.  It’s really easy to say that you’ll do the right thing when you are not the one experiencing the dilemma.  So, I’m reserving my judgment with regards to whether or not Jon and Kate are doing the right thing for their kids by continuing on with the show.

As a loving parent, I make decisions for my kids and for my family that may not make sense to other people.  Not all of these decisions are always right, because let’s face it, noone’s perfect.  Jon and Kate, despite whatever faults they have, do really seem to love their children, and I can only assume that they are thinking of them always.

I was reading my old post, When do babies start to talk?, and remembered how concerned I was back then about my son not saying as many words as the guidelines stated.  I didn’t have to worry at all.  My son, at 3 years old now, talks so much.  He knows many words, he can sing lots of songs from memory, he can recite and recognize all the letters of the alphabet and count numbers up to 14.  He asks lots of questions and can make up short stories.  I realized how far he’s come with his speech when we were working on an activity from his preschool.  The activity was to match the geometrical shapes with the word.  He can’t really read yet, so I asked him to say what the shapes were.  He knew them all!  He said “cone”, “cube” and “cylinder” very well, but he had a little trouble with “rectangular prism” and “triangular prism”.  I was really impressed; I didn’t expect children his age would be taught those shapes yet.  It just shows that you should never underestimate what children are capable of.

I have breastfed all of my kids.  For the first baby, I breastfed exclusively for 6 months and went on to breastfeed (with solids and formula to supplement) until about 11 months.  For the second baby, I breastfed exclusively for 5 months, and breastfed him until about 8 months.  I wanted to go on longer, but around the 6th month, it was always really painful at the start of the breastfeeding session.  I didn’t have this issue with my first baby, so I thought it was because my second baby was just more aggressive or was starting to get teeth and had to bite on my nipples or had problems with the initial latching on.

With the new baby, I again experienced the problem with the very painful initial latch-on.  It started around the 3rd day, when my milk began to come in.  As he would start to suck, I would feel this excruciating pain for about 10 to 15 seconds.  After that, it was fine.  When we went to the maternal services clinic a couple of days later, I told the consultant about it and she said it was probably just due to the fact that my breasts were engorged, and the baby had trouble latching on because they were so big.  She did recommend that I use a lanolin cream on my nipples to help heal or prevent soreness or cracks.

I followed her advice, but even after I was no longer engorged the pain continued.  I would brace myself before each feeding, knowing the pain that was about to come.  I looked up the symptoms on the internet to see what it could be.  Some people said it was due to latching issues, others said it may be thrush and a couple mentioned painful letdown.  Solutions included wearing nipple shields, treating the thrush and fixing the latch.

After about 4 weeks, the pain began to subside, and it no longer occurred each time I breastfed.  I have been using the lanolin cream - applying it once in the morning and once at night.  My nipples never became cracked, even through all the pain.  There was still some soreness though.  Now (seven weeks later), I still feel some pain when he first latches on and starts sucking, but it’s not as much pain as in those first few weeks.  I do believe the problem can be attributed to painful letdown.  I noticed that when I applied the lanolin on my nipples, it would initiate the letdown, my milk would leak, and I could feel a little of the pain I would usually feel when the baby started feeding.

I’m glad I was able to overcome those first few weeks of pain and continue breastfeeding.  I really enjoy that time with the baby.

Wow, I can’t believe how long it’s been since I last posted here.  Granted, we have been pretty busy this past year.  We just recently welcomed our third baby in April, so I am now the proud mother of 3 boys!  I am currently on maternity leave and hopefully, that will give me a little more free time to write on this blog.  (Ya..right!)

Having a baby again just reminds you of how sweet and wonderful newborns are.  Sure, the baby can cry his lungs out when he really wants something, but most of the time, he just sleeps and eats.  I love watching his face when he’s sleeping, or talking to him when he’s awake.  He’s already started making those “coo” sounds that make babies so adorable.

I have to admit that a small part of me wanted to have a girl, since I already had two boys.  And when we found out at the ultrasound that it would be a boy, there was a tiny bit of disappointment.  Of course, my main wish was for a healthy baby, so I got over it pretty quickly.  Our new baby boy is happy and healthy and that’s all a parent can really ask for.  He’s such a good baby too.  At two months old, he’s sleeping consistently between 10 pm and 3 am.  He’ll wake up for a feeding and changing, then sleep again until about 7 am.

His two older brothers have welcomed him with open arms.  They always want to hug and kiss him.  In fact, they can be so affectionate that I have to hold them back from squeezing him too hard or getting saliva on his face from all the kissing!