Potty training!

Well, this was the big P weekend - the daycare announced that they felt JJ was "ready" for potty training and I sort of agreed. I say "sort of" because I have absolutely no idea. I mean, you can't ever know for sure, and while his communication skills are outstanding for a 1.5 year old, they are still rather challenging from an adult perspective. But, if not this weekend, then the next opportunity wouldn't be until November so...onwards and pottywards!

We opted for the "nekkid kid" approach on Saturday, letting him roam free with naught on but a shirt and a smile. I think the poor little guy learned more about how "not to climb on things while naked" than anything else as he kept getting his dangle caught on things (OUCH!). And, it was a total disaster. I spent the whole day watching him like a hawk and we had maybe a 60% success rate. In fact, we've had better days when he was wearing a diaper than we had on Saturday! I was really discouraged. We had to run an errand in the evening, so we put underwear on him, and he wet himself twice while we were out. I went to bed sure that we had started too early and very discouraged.

On Sunday, we decided to start again with the nekkid kid approach, except this time John was home and could help. The morning was more of the same disaster - accidents all over the place and no apparent interest in getting to the potty. He went down for a nap around noon and when he woke up, we took him straight to the potty and celebrated the success. Then, we decided to say "Well, since you were dry through your whole nap (he always is, so no biggie really) and went potty so well when you woke up, would you like some "special" underwear?" We got out the Cars underwear with Mater on it and he was thrilled (he loves that movie). We told him that in order to wear these it was really important to keep Mater dry. And what do you know? It totally worked. He was dry for the next 7 hours!!! He went potty when prompted and we even went out to a late lunch, to Target for more underwear, and to Brahms for ice cream - all with NO accidents.

At bedtime, we put him in a diaper (we're still co-sleeping, and while he can make it through the night dry, whenever he wakes up with nightmares or night terrors, he tends to pee before we can get him to a potty), and were very encouraged by the whole thing.

Unsurprisingly, he had night terrors last night. I say unsurprisingly because whenever he has a significant change/learning event, it tends to trigger them.

This morning, we brought him to school (dry! hooray!) and let them know how it went. At lunch we had to go home and get more pants because he had 4 accidents in the morning. I'm interested to see how he did in the afternoon - it's got to be a huge adjustment from being able to go whenever you want without interrupting your activities to having to stop and go to a special room and sit down every time you need to go. It would be so much easier if they would practice the elimination communication we started with him full time at daycare. Oh well. Hopefully he'll improve during the week and we'll keep reinforcing at home. And, if it turns out that it's just too soon, well, that's ok too, and we'll just go back and try again later. Although, I swear, I think *I* stressed out way more over the whole thing than JJ did. I kept being certain I was doing something wrong. I think he just thought it was interesting that he got to be nekkid all day! LOL!

Night terrors again

JJ had night terrors again last night. Still on a once a month cycle, bless his heart. I will be so glad when he outgrows this - it just tears me up everytime it happens to him.

Night terrors again

Another bout of night terrors last night. This one lasted 15 minutes. We were able to eventually get him to wake up enough to nurse himself back to sleep. This is actually something I haven't seen in any of the research I've done on the subject - typically you cannot wake the child and they go right back to sleep when the episode is over. For JJ, it seems like you can eventually bring him to a slightly higher level of awareness and provide him with a comfort (nursing), then he can go back to sleep. Otherwise it just goes on and on until he wakes up. I don't know if this is because he is so young - most night terrors are reported in children over the age of 2 and he started having them when he was only 3 months old - or for some other reason. I wish I knew what his triggers were - my heart breaks every time he goes through these bouts, which seem to come about once a month. Poor little guy.

Night terrors again

We had another episode last night - only lasted for about 5 minutes this time, but he woke up from it shaken and disoriented.  The Christmas tree lights seemed to soothe him.  Poor thing.

Night terrors

You wake to your baby screaming.  He's terrified - you can hear it in the high pitched wail, see it in his staring eyes that can't see you, feel it in the tension of his little body as he thrashes trying to get away from whatever demons pursue him.  You can't wake him - his eyes are open but he doesn't recognize anything or anyone and he screams so hard it makes him choke and cough.  Tear stream down his face and there's nothing nothing nothing you can do.  This is what it is like when your child has night terrors, more properly called "confusional arousal". JJ has had these episodes about once or twice a month since he was around 3 or 4 months old.  Usually they only last about 5 minutes, and at first we thought it was just a bad dream.  Last night though he had an episode that lasted 15 minutes - which is a life time for a helpless parent.  I hope he never has another one.