Toilet Training ... it continues

We seem to have made some progress it would seem. After taking a step backwards and not pushin Sophia, it seems she has started to decide (with my wifes help) to start using the dunny.

Last week Sophia decided that she wanted to be a baby - to the point that she actually spent one night back in the cot. That only lasted one night - she is too big for it and it was uncomfortable!! Anyway, my wife decided to try some reverse psychology on Sophia today and told that she is now going to be a baby forever, that she won;t be able to go to school, etc....

That seems to have struck a chord with Sophia - she went to the toilet 3 times today. Woohoo!!

Something else that we are trying is an achievement board. There are 69 sqaures on the boadr and every time Sophia does a wee she gets one sticker to place on the board. If she does a poo she gets two stickers. At various points there are 'Surprises' where she gets a...well.... surprise! 

I think this is working.

Wouldn't you know it?

Wouldn’t you know it? The day my wife decided to stop toilet training and Sophia uses the potty. Number 1’s AND number 2’s. Let’s see how she goes today at day care.

Toilet training… So Far

Well it started in earnest last Friday. We were told by day care that Sophia had gone to the toilet twice during the day and that she was ready for toilet training. So we started with the terry towelling knickers, pulled out the book “Lo Lo’s Loo” and started engaging her with coloured toilet water:

•  Blue food dye goes green
•  Red food dye goes orange

But alas we have had nothing but accidents. By Wednesday my wife had had enough and called it off. Sophia was argumentative and refusing to even sit on the toilet. She has also regressed a little – she has said on more than one occasion “I want to be a baby”. Cute, but frustrating.

This desire to become a baby again I think is stemming from the fact that her sister is a baby (2 mo) and Sophia is perhaps jealous of the attention that Anneliese is getting, particularly from my wife. The plus side is that regression is usually a sign that she is about to make a significant leap forward. Apparently this theory has some scientific basis –I have not searched for hat proof, and nor am I likely to  - but it is certainly a truth from my experience with Sophia.

This is one of the reasons why I wanted to continue with the toilet training. At some point it will all click and she’ll start using the toilet at home etc… and I think persistence is important. However so is my wife’s sanity, and so we wait….

An Overdue Update

Now with two kids it is becoming more interesting. With the first it was all about ‘what can we do?’ and ‘what do we do?’. Thankfully my wife is great at this stuff and she has done some terrific work with our two daughters.  So where are we at?

A) Sophia. She is now almost 2 ½ years old. She is reading sentences when she concentrates on reading one word at a time. We achieved this by starting with the YBCR program and reading books to her. We have always made sure that we underline the words are we read them with our finger so she understands that we read left to right, top to bottom.  At this stage it is about encouraging her to read. We now give her 30 minutes after she has gone to bed where she can have the light on and read books to herself with the door shut. To be honest I am not sure if this is working, but it has made bed time a far more peace proposition and you can hear her talking (reading?) to her teddy bears. And her reading has improved in teh last week or so. She is also expressing a strong interesting in writing. From time to time she can draw an ‘O’ or a ‘D’. My wife bought some writing training books which are great. They show Sophia how to form letters and loves to trace them, although her fine motor skills are not quite up to the job just yet.

B) I have also been focusing on physical balance with Sophia. When we are the playground I am encouraging her to climb over things. Climbing up and down is easy, but over is a lot more challenging. I have been showing her how to place her feet and hands to achieve what she wants to do. Sometimes it works, and sometimes not – there have been a few falls!

C) Oh and we just started toilet training with her too. That is another blog entry altogether!!

D)Anneliese. She is now 2 months old. She is very alert and is tracking visually and aurally. She can distinguish important voices (mummy, daddy and Sophia) and this week has starting batting some of the hanging items over her bassinet. My wife (and therefore myself) has been making a concerted effort to make sure she spends a lot of time on her tummy. This is paying dividends as Anneliese has very strong neck muscles. I have also been encouraging her to stand up on my lap to help build her leg muscles. She is doing very well – she can stand for 2-3 minutes at a time while I hold her hands/arms. And she loves it! She is also smiling a lot, cooing and has a rudimentary laugh which we are hearing more frequently.

So with Sophia it is about reinforcing the reading – encouraging her, guiding her and helping her. That, and making the dunny water green/orange. As I said earlier, that’s another post…