2005-04-05 - 1:35 a.m.

I am up for the now nightly ritual of Sadie's bath and cleaning of her sheets and blankets and changing of her bed. She is attempting to stay dry at night.

We are miserably failing at this. She was awoken at 10pm and went to the bathroom. I MEANT to set the alarm for midnight for the next bathroom trip. I forgot to do so, and 1:30 was just too late for her.

She is not rousing AT ALL when she has to go to the bathroom.

She has been out of diapers throughout the day for a long time now and when talking with other mom's it occurred to me she is likely old enough to learn how to stay dry at night too.

Hmmmm... I think I need to do more reading about this to see how to encourage her to learn this.

Its a challenge.

I don't actually MIND the nightly laundry of this week. I figured that like anything else it will just take practice.

I need more practice! I keep missing the WAKE up time to bring her to the potty! I keep forgetting to set MY ALARM in reminder!

I keep getting her up at 10pm to go potty (successfully) but then I naturally wake around 1:30 or 2pm and she's been soaked. Off to set the alarm for 11:30pm NOW!! Maybe then tommorrow she shall have greater success!

And tommorrow maybe I'll read about this to see if there is anything I really need to know other than "Practice, Practice, Practice" like most other learned behaviors in life.

OH- and YES KATIE is still in DIAPERS! NO I DIDN"T REALLY USE THE NEGATIVE REINFORCERS WITH HER!

Katie is VERY strong willed, and sometimes resistant (OK FORGET SOMETIMES) to change. She is CAPABLE but NOT INTERESTED in getting out of diapers.

At the BIBLR STUDY on FRI we have a moment of prayer at the end for people's concerns. Anything... like unemployment, troubles w/ family struggles w/ alcohol etc... and YES struggles in potty training! Its SUCH A GREAT GROUP of MOMS! LAST FRI one of the mom's said "IT might sound silly, but please lets pray for me regarding potty training of my almost 4 yr old...." and we heard her boy's story. Its SO FUNNY how the ladies share their SECRETS... I guess one read an AMISH book about this when they had a great resistant child. The Amish use an outdoor hose! It is a great deterrant for the kid who KNOWS how but hasn't been willing to BOTHER. The other mom used the "YOU CLEAN YOURSELF" method and after one afternoon where she let her boy clean up himself he never wore diapers again.
I'm still letting Katie do this in her own time. We'll see how it goes.

Best advice I heard was "What happens if you let her run around naked? Will she head to the toilet?"
That was the #1 way most of the mom's trained kids. They let them just run around naked after taking off the first soiled underwear! YES NAKED, and then washed the pair of underwear and rather than get more the kids started to use the potty b/c when naked they had more interest. It was so cool that the mom's were so nonchalant about that! I thought clothes are MY issue! Kids couldn't care less! Its really true! The mom's said the toddlers really didn't mind being naked and that then they headed for the toilet! A few mom's trained that way by just planning for a week of not going anywhere until their kid GOT IT! Sounds like a method I will try with Katie. They basically said "Here's the last diaper. We are not getting anymore" then switched to underwear... and then the naked butt when it was wet (Even thought they COULD have grabbed other pairs-- this seemed to have eluded the two year olds.) Anyway... being almost 4 maybe KAtie won't be naked but will know to grab new underwear.

OH- in this whole story is the fact that my two and a half year old Raitlin IS IN UNDERWEAR during the day ! She has done AWESOME. (One accident today! But otherwise dry)
At the end of this week of underwear she in fact will not only have had potty candy for each time on the toilet but a big celebration ICE CREAM sundae out some where.

Maybe that will also motivate KATIE... we'll see!

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