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…

Day 21 - 27th December, 2010

It's been a week since I last wrote. Christmas is one of those times in the year when you have too much to do and not enough time to do it in. Our Christmas is a four day saga that starts on Christmas Eve, culminating in a Boxing day lunch, or Proclamation Day, which is the official holiday title in South Australia.

So not much has changed over the week, other than the normal routine been completely awash. The two year old was becoming unruly in the afternoons until today when we spent the whole day at home and reverted back to our usual day of activities. I think missing the sleep in the middle of day is what really messed with her behaviour. After a mid-day nap she was fine today, much to our combined relief.

And the newborn has also had her, albeit brief, routine in disarray too. The tummy time, the black and white images have all been present but in reduced form and frequency, and with no routine. And being passed around like a pass-the-parcel wasn't helping. Again that was brought back to normal today. I think she enjoyed it to.

On the change table we have a montage of black and white images - her favourite is the back cross on white background. My wife was saying the other day that she thinks the contrast and simple shape catch her attention. Makes sense to me.

We have also noticed that she likes watching the slide show of family pics on our ASENT Media Centre. Again it is the black and white that catches her attention and that she can focus on. As of tomorrow I will start showing the presentations of back and white things to her on a regular, daily basis. I will also start adding to the collection of slide shows.

As part of the bathing routine we are massaging her with baby oil. The oil is used to moisturise the dry skin (any wife/girl friend can tell you that!) and it helps with loosening the muscles. I have also been told to name the body parts that are being massaged - left leg, right hand, neck, back, stomach, neck, etc... This ties in with my personal philosophy of talking to kids in an adult voice, rather than the 'coochy, coo' that a lot of people use. They are small humans, just like big humans with out the experience. So talk to them like humans!

Day 14 - 20th Dec, 2010

I had a sleep in today! First time in a while - many weeks. If you are a new dad for the first, or subsequent time, I highly recommend getting a sleepin when ever you can. I felt like I had energy today, particularly this morning. Since I am a night person I am awake at night (der!), but struggle without several cups of coffee in the morning. Add sleep deprivation to that and it's not a pretty sight!

We have continued the basics with Anneliese. Having spent a large portion of the day out of the house I have not shown her the B&W presentation I made. I might fix that directly, as she is awake for the next hour or so.

This morning I gave her some more tummy time and held my hands behind her feet so she can push herself along. At this stage of the game it is very much a reactionary movement, but she needs to learn what the effect of pushing with her feet will have. The mobility aspect of it helps increase blood flow, increase muscle strength and helps develop the sense of self. Apparently. It makes sense to me and it is what my wife is saying as she walks around the house! You can read her blog here intellikidsdownunder.blogspot.com . She has read a lot of books on early learning and is quite knowledgeable on the subject.

Anneliese is almost 2 weeks old and is starting to change her habits. Her feeds are starting to become more spaced out (we got 5.5 hours last night between feeds - BLISS!!) and she is starting to spend a bit more time awake. This is great because I can sing, play and generally spend time with her more. She can also watch what I do.

When I doing things around the house I try to involve Anneliese (and the eldest) as much as possible. For example when I am doing the dishes I place her in the bouncer on the bench so she can see exactly what I am doing. I then talk to her about what I am doing and why I am doing it. This gets a bit repetitive night after night, dad after day, but I believe it helps Anneliese makes sense of the world around her and helps her understand that (in this case) cleaning is one of the things that we all have to do. I did the same with my eldest. I got her involved in assembling furnisher (see pic), or what ever it is I was doing at the time to keep her involved.

It also helps build a bond between father and child, and this is extremely important to me and has been shown to improve the quality of life for the child.

Day 11 - Dec 17th, 2010

The other day my wife (who has a reciprocal blog here) mentioned that I should rock our new born in my arms. So I asked why. Apparently it has to do with vestibular balance and physical development. She showed me a book that she has read and is reading again for our newborn. It is called "Smart Start" by Margaret Sasse. She is the lady who developed the Gymbaroo program - something I highly recommend to aid physical development.

Any way, the idea here is that y rocking the newborn from left to right, up and down,  rotating left to right, etc... you help the inner ear (vestibular) to develop thereby helping the infant learn balance and develop it's centre of gravity - something very useful later on in life. As a motorsport nut this appeals to me. riving a car fast or playing sport successfully is all about physical balance. I would like my kids to be good at sport - my 2 yo can catch and throw well (well enough to throw someone shoes over the fence at daycare the other day!!) - and balance is essential.

So I will continue these exercises with number 2. I did not do them consciously with number 1, but my wife did. With her hands full  I will make an effort with Anneliese!

For the record we gave Anneliese some tummy time today, let her look at black and white images and generally gave her lots of love.

And while I think of it, I showed her my first B&W shapes presentation the other day. She responded very well - her eyes never moved from the screen! I need to keep this up , so I will repeat tomorrow. Getting into a new routine is taking longer than I thought!