potty training

Potty training and growing up with Thomas | Giveaway (CLOSED)

- Stacey Leave a comment
Regular readers of the blog will know that J started potty training early last year and since then we have been up & down like a yo-yo, going totally off track at points too and right back to the beginning with him wearing nappies full time. Though deep down it was frustrating for me, I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t force it as he obviously wasn’t ready and I know from other people that it could have set him back even more rather than encourage it.
Still, it’s taken a long time and we have introduced Thomas & Friends previously with a Railroad Rewards Potty. This did spur him on a little with him learning that doing his ‘business’ on the potty reaped rewards, but over the last couple of months we have almost cracked it completely – we can almost see a light at the end of the tunnel! 
The beginning of our journey was quite stressful as he tried to get the hang of it, but after introducing a Thomas & Friends My Thomas Potty book (though we used it for the toilet instead) and Thomas & Friends Well Done Thomas, Activity Book (both published by Egmont), he was determined to get all of his stickers each day and he has been managing with almost no accidents! I think the fact that there are pictures of real children in the potty book really encouraged him, as did the reward chart and activities.
I think just like situations in Thomas & Friends, potty & toilet training involves lots of team work and using these books it can be made fun for the child rather than stressful! With gentle reminders and lots of praise – you could include the poo & wee song in this, or even make up your own song to the Thomas & Friends theme tune! – it can be encouraging rather than stressful for both parties.
This experience with Thomas & Friends has even made me more positive that when it comes around to the time for N to start potty training, it will be a much smoother ride and J can also give him encouragement. After all, I’ve also learned from this journey, and that’s what Thomas & Friends is all about!
If you feel like your child may need some gentle encouragement from Thomas & Friends, I am able to offer you the opportunity to win a set of these books – just complete the Rafflecopter below. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway



Terms & conditions
Open to UK residents 18 & over.
Entries must be received by 11.59 pm on 29/10/2015.
The winner will be drawn randomly via Rafflecopter/random.org when the giveaway has ended and will be sent an email informing them they have won.
The winner has 24 hours to respond to the email or a new winner will be drawn.
I will send the winner’s details on and the prize will be sent directly from the PR.


*PR collaboration

Jacob at 3 years 5 months old

- Stacey 2 Comments
Jacob 3y5m featured

So I seem to be on time with this update – though I did miss his last one due to my blogging break but I thought I’d just skip straight to this one!

His behaviour has improved so much in the last couple of months. We do still have our moments but nothing like it was before. I no longer go to collect him from nursery dreading what they are going to feed back to me that he has done this time. It feels a bit strange saying it as I obviously didn’t condone it before, but I’m glad he has had no reports of hitting for such a long time; I’m very proud of him! He has learned now to tell somebody what is wrong instead of just lashing out straight away, though he does get incredibly upset and a couple of times he has hit himself instead (though now I have that to worry about). His behaviour at home has improved significantly too. He does still have his moments with N, but now N has started giving as good as he gets (argh!). He knows straight away now when he has done wrong and will say sorry, and give a kiss and a cuddle. In fact, he loves giving kisses and cuddles these days and is always showering his brother with them!

We are almost there with toilet training. He has gone through a phase recently where he won’t go into the toilet as apparently there is a monster in there…no idea where he has got that idea from! I think we’re getting over that now though. At nursery he spends all day in big boy pants but when at home he often wants a pull up on; we’re trying to deal with this at the minute as he is doing so well now and I don’t want him to have a huge regression. Plus, his Uncle says that when J can go to the toilet by himself he can stay overnight! 😉

He is memorising and learning so much these days. He can now almost count to twenty; he knows the alphabet; he knows so many rhymes and lullabies and often sings them to N; and we now have proper conversations, I love my mini adult! Some of the things he comes out with are hilarious and he often has us in fits of laughter! Though everybody at the minute is Mr Tumble, or Mrs Tumble, or Baby Tumble… He also calls me ‘Mrs’ at the minute, cheeky monkey! Compared to this time last year when he was only just learning how to say his name, he has come on in leaps & bounds.

Current favourites
Food – Kinder eggs…
Drink – Scary purple minion juice (squash!)
TV – Mr Tumble…
Toys – His cars which he lines up in a traffic jam
Books – I like to squeak, how do you speak?, The Wheels on the Bus
 
Linking to Magic Moments with The Oliver’s Madhouse.

Little man J at 3 years 3 months old

- Stacey 1 Comment

Yet again I’m late with this update as yet again it’s almost time for the next one, in another week. J & his brother are totally siphoning my energy at the moment so I just can’t keep up. Never mind!

I’ve posted before how he had behavioural problems at nursery but recently he has been getting a good report when I collect him; I’m thinking maybe the Pitstop we have been attending has done some magic on him, but then I think well he is pretty much still just the same at home! Maybe they are dealing better with him than I am, after all they are trained in dealing with children whereas I just make it up as I go along, ha!

One of the issues that started recently is at bedtime. It literally takes two of us to get him to bed as he just does not want to go and becomes violent toward us. On one of the worst nights it took over an hour and in that time he kicked, screamed, pulled my hair, poked our eyes, continually demanded food just to waste time, and asked to go live with other family members; other times we have also been bitten and punched. In all honesty, it really has started to take its toll on me and I sometimes wish I was somewhere else during one of these episodes. Despite all of this, he is still a brilliant little helper! He is just like Jekyll & Hyde sometimes…

I mentioned last time that we’d had a little progress with potty/toilet training and in fact there has been a little more progression since then. At the beginning of last month, he started doing most of his wee’s on the toilet both at nursery and home – still no poo though! I was very proud of him that day he decided to go to the toilet at home without any prompting from me.

His conversational skills are also progressing brilliantly and I have to share one of the conversations we had on the walk home from nursery recently:
Me: “Come on baby, let’s go home”
J: “I’m a baby”
Me: “Well no, you’re not really a baby, but you’ll always be Mummy’s baby”
J: “You’re my baby Mummy”
Adorable!
He has also started calling his brother “My Noah” and will hold his hand, although sometimes N just doesn’t want to!

Current favourites
Food – Yogurt coated rice cakes
Drink – Happy orange minion juice (orange squash!)
TV – Team Umizoomi, Blaze and the Monster Machines
Movies – Walking With Dinosaurs
Toys – Mega Bloks
Books – The Three Little Pigs

Penwizard personalised Pirate Potty book | Book review

- Stacey 6 Comments
My regular readers will most likely know that J first began potty training over a year ago but he wasn’t really getting anywhere so we just decided to leave it for the time being. A few months ago he started showing an interest again but he was being quite inconsistent and I thought we were going to be back to square one again. Just as we were in the midst of potty training again we received a personalised potty training story book from Penwizard and I think it truly has helped J make great progress.
This boys version of the potty training story is based on a Pirate with the child’s name, and also personalisation to look like them. This is great because it’s more personal to the child for them to identify with the character. The story begins with the beginning of the potty training process when the child decides they want to be more grown up. The book is interactive with the child able to choose a potty from the pictures on the page.

 

It then goes through the whole process including experimenting with it being a hat (!), choosing pants (again interactive), practising with pants, and then finally doing the business on the potty! It also includes pirate potty rules – the process of emptying it and hand washing. It touches upon accidents and how much harder it is to do a poo, until the pirate is finally fully potty trained!

 

I love the whole concept of the book as it really encourages the child and helps them understand the potty training process more than just explaining it to them. The illustrations are great, colourful, characteristic, and situations really true to life!
Not long after the book arrived J not only did business on the potty, but also on the toilet! I think it’s a worthwhile investment if like us you have started potty training but don’t feel like you are getting anywhere, or if you are on the verge of it.
The potty training books from Penwizard retail at £14.99 and there is a choice of pirate, princess, or prince.
Our rating – 4.5/5
 
Disclosure
We were sent this book free of charge to review. All thoughts and opinions are honest & our own.

Potty & toilet training with J

- Stacey Leave a comment

Over J’s last few updates (well over the last year or so in fact, on & off) I have written about his potty training progress. He started potty training last year when we thought he was showing an interest but he was really sporadic with it and so we just left it. Just before Christmas he had started showing an interest again and so Nanna bought him a Thomas Tank musical potty which seemed to do the trick, and he finally had his first wee on it just before he turned three!

After that he was a bit more regular on it but nothing consistent, as much as we tried to help. Over the last month or so though he hasn’t even been on the potty; he’s done all of his business on the big toilet! This came about because he went to the loo with Grandad and just decided he wanted to sit on the toilet too, and I don’t know if it was a fluke but he did a wee!

Ever since then we have really encouraged him with using the ‘big boy’ toilet and though he isn’t completely consistent yet, he does a lot of his wee’s on there. He has a step and a toilet seat which I think helps as he can do it himself and it makes him feel more grown up. He mostly wears pants during the day; he still has the occasional accident but we don’t make a huge fuss about it when he does.

Previously, I was adamant that I wasn’t going to use pull up pants with him as I believed that it would just confuse him, but wearing a nappy wasn’t really helping with him going to the toilet so we started on them and now he wears them at night and if we’re going on a journey where there won’t be a toilet for while. We could take his potty but he still has occasions when he forgets that he has pants on until it’s too late, and I don’t fancy washing his car seat cover that often!

We had really been encouraging him to do a poo on the toilet as well but we weren’t really getting anywhere. Now I’m not sure if this was a fluke also, but on the last day of our recent holiday he did it! I got really excited, everyone really praised him, and he was so proud of himself, but he hasn’t done one on there since. I do ask him regularly if he needs the loo but sometimes he will say no or just refuses. I think I need to see if there is any time pattern as to when he poo’s so we can try and get him to sit on the toilet.

I must admit, I thought he would be toilet, or at least potty trained by now as most of his peers are; but I’m not putting too much pressure on it and you never know, we might be fully there by his fourth birthday! (I hope it’s easier with N!)