Payne Family Boot Camp

Over the last 24 hours, we have started sleep training Georgia and potty training Nate. We're just whipping these kids right into shape, and it's going well so far.

Georgia has us wrapped around her little finger. That is the most determined and stubborn child. She has learned from the best, her big brother. She wants us to rock her or nurse her to sleep, then when you lay her down in her crib, she pops right back up and screams until you pick her up again. If I happen to get her asleep enough that she doesn't wake up when I lay her down, I am not ashamed to crawl out of her room so I don't wake her. But the slightest noise--like my ankle popping as I leave the room--will wake her and start the whole process over again. When I do get her to sleep, she usually sleeps fairly well until 4 am, then she expects to come to bed with me and nurse pretty much constantly until I get up 3 hours later. Enough!

Last week I made the spur of the moment decision to let her cry it out. But I was rusty on my technique, and I was soft, and I'm ashamed to say she won that battle and ended up in bed with me all night. So last night I refamiliarized myself with the technique and was determined to win. I put her down very sleepy but still awake, and she started crying as I left the room. I let her cry 3 minutes, then went in and laid her back down and soothed her for a minute or two, then left again. I let her cry 5 minutes, soothed again, then 10 minutes, and when I soothed her down again, she went to sleep. Success! She did end up waking up around 1:30 am, but she had a dirty diaper, which is really rare for her in the middle of the night. So I changed her diaper, I did NOT feed her (whoo!), and she went back to sleep! Today she has gone down without a problem for all her naps and then to bed tonight. I will knock on wood and just expect to have more issues, but for now, this is working great! Very happy with our progress. A little crying one night is nothing if it means less crying overall for the foreseeable future.

We let Nate cry it out too, but that child couldn't go to sleep at all unless he cried for 10 minutes then passed out. He did that for at least a year. It was just the only thing that worked, stubborn boy. The difference with him was that he never stood in his crib. He'd just lay there crying until he fell asleep mid-cry. Georgia immediately pops up and stands in her crib, trying to scale the side, and it's much harder to pass out cold while standing.

Anyway, on to potty training. The back story is that very few kids with Spina Bifida actually potty train typically. Most need to be cathed and on some kind of bowel management program, whether it's diet or medication or enemas or surgery. Some need to do these things to keep their bladder/kidneys/bowels healthy, and others just have to start around school age for continence so they don't have to wear diapers. Well, Nate has never had any issues with his bladder/kidneys/bowels. All the tests look pretty good. One particular test on his bladder (urodynamics) shows that he may not be able to feel when his bladder is full in order to release it, but we just can't tell for sure. So although the odds are against us, we do feel compelled to try to potty train him typically to see what happens, and we have seen some positive progress that makes us hopeful that it could happen. For the last few months, we have gone in spurts making him sit on the potty, having "naked day," etc., but Nate is not at all cooperative. That's just Nate, and it doesn't help that he's a boy and boys are typically less enthusiastic about potty training, and we don't know if it might have something to do with how much he feels or can control. We just don't know! Combine that with the fact that Blake and I have never potty trained anyone before, and we're just fumbling around in the dark here.

But Nate is now 4. It is time to potty train. He doesn't particularly like naked potty training. Apparently this is a fairly recent phenomenon, leaving a child naked to run around so he can feel when he's had an accident. Many people are horrified and disgusted at the idea. :) But many parents of young kids swear by this method. Every time I mention Naked Nate Day, Nate says, "But I want to wear clothes!" So this time I told him he was going to wear big boy underwear, and not only that--they are THOMAS big boy underwear! His response: "But I want my diapers." Okay, four years in diapers ... you're going to be kind of attached to them, fine. But I put the underwear on him anyway, and oh my goodness. Little boy underwear is so dang cute I can't stand it. Adorable! It's so funny seeing him without a diaper padding his behind--I didn't know it was possible for his little butt to be even flatter. :)

Oh, I forgot to mention the potty itself. One of the reasons I've had such a hard time getting started with potty training is I have been unable to find the right potty. We've tried everything. A Dora seat that goes on top of the big toilet--the pee guard is nonexistent so pee goes everywhere, he feels like he's going to fall off the toilet, and it's too small. A special toilet seat that has an adult seat and a built in child seat--so awesome in theory, but that goes out the window when there is pee all over my floor. A truck potty seat that sits in the floor--again, nonexistent pee guard, and the seat was made for a 25 pound two year old, not a 42 pound 4 year old. A bjorn potty seat--the best so far, but it's hard plastic and makes his legs go to sleep. The best we could do was sitting him on the big toilet backwards. I don't know why it worked, but it did. I have researched potties online for HOURS, I am not kidding. Well last week I finally ran across one I thought might work and I ordered it. Jackpot!

The Prince Lionheart PottyPod is the Cadillac of potty seats. It's $45 worth of comfort for Nate's tush. The seat is cushy AND antimicrobial. It has the perfect pee guard. It's taller and wider than most potties. It's easy to clean. I'm in love with a potty and I'm not afraid who knows it.

So it's been going pretty well. Last night he went pee in the potty, and in a total rookie move I let him sit on the couch thinking he wouldn't have to pee again for awhile. Yeah, that's how you end up with pee on your couch. This morning Blake called me at work to update me on their potty training progress, and he said he was on something like his 4th pair of underwear. Um, honey, the whole point is for them to feel that they're wet when they have an accident. If you keep putting dry underwear on him, he might as well have a diaper on. Ohhhhh, he said. We're still learning. Alisa is the only one who's ever potty trained a kid before, and Nate knows it, I think. She put him in his swim diaper before leaving the house to take him to swim lessons (Did you know swim diapers don't hold pee?), and he was dry when he got there. When they left, she put underwear on him, and they got stuck in traffic for about an hour, but he was still dry when he got home and peed a bunch on the potty. Tonight he told me he did not want to wear his underwear in bed, and I complied, of course. Baby steps.

We're getting Georgia and Nate all fixed up. Now somebody needs to come whip me into shape. I'm thinking about starting Weight Watchers tomorrow...