June Hodge

Not so. The aforementioned book "toilet training in less than a day"
specifically teaches toilet independance. Getting their own pants up and
down, emptying their own potty. If U help them to learn to pull their pants
down and up instead of just doing it yourself that can be done before an
attempt at pottying.
You can tell when they are ready to train as they go longer between
urinating and are usually dry in the morning. Of course, this depends on
what they eat. Lots of Juice (sugar) that some think is healthy? cows milk,
which makes them pee more. My just turned a yr old is already dry some
mornings. Yes she breastfeeds in the night. my 3 yr old dd has had dry
pants since 2 yr. with 1 accident and 1 bed wetting. How about a stool
at the sink so they can easily wash themselves. I only took extra
underwear and pants with me for 2 weeks. Never did use them. That method
teaches true independance. No I don't ask them if they need to go potty or
remind them except to tell them we are going somewhere (so we all go potty
first)
IMO, people make pottying harder than it needs to be.
ok done.
June in WA






The thing I have seen with moms who train before 2 is that they then must
spend the next year asking the children every half hour if they need to go,
and leading them to the potty about six times a day, and of course they
spend quite a lot of time in the bathroom taking pants on and off, wiping
and helping wash hands. They have to have extra underwear and pants packed
wherever they go and deal with about one accident a day for quite a while.
Granted mine didn't learn til he was 3.5, but once he did it was all his own
affair: He went when he needed to without being reminded or led, took his
pants on and off himself, and knew to wash up afterward, and had maybe half
a dozen accidents total. And then, what about when the child is visiting
someone without you, or you are out somewhere where it's not convenient to
sit on the potty so often? I think someone did observe recently that mothers
of the past stayed home with their children a lot more of the time.

My mom, who had us both out of diapers before we were 2, admitted that for
that first year, it was not the toddler but her who was trained. I guess
it's just a matter of how you want to go about it.

As I said I don't think it hurts either way, but it does seem more tedious
for all concerned if you train before they are really ready to be
independent potty-goers.

Annette






>Message: 6
> Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 18:53:59 -0800
> From: "Lynda" <lurine@...>
>Subject: Re: Unschooling potty-training and weaning
>
>Well, I'm going to play devil's advocate here. Can someone tell me exactly
>what is wrong with early toilet training if it is done right? By right, I
>would guess the way that we did it back in the dark ages. It wasn't a big
>deal, you were in the bathroom for whatever reason and you plotted the
>kidlet on the toilet and asked if they thought they might want to [insert
>name of choice] in the big potty. You folded towels and put them away, put
>on your make-up, cleaned the sink, whatever. If they did, cheering, if
>they didn't, no big deal and a o.k., maybe next time. No trauma, no force,
>no big deal. Of course, the boys were the easiest as they liked to watch
>it splash, kind of a monkey see, monkey do thing with daddy or uncle or big
>brother. Again, no big deal. As long as you caught them before the
>terrible 2's it wasn't any big deal. They love making the toilet flush and
>watching the water swirl and gurgle, too.
>
>Sure, some folks got carried away and it became a competition but you are
>going to see that in any area of child rearing. And, all in all, it is
>healthier for the kids to be out of the diapers.
>
>Lynda
>
>----------

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