Toilet training and big boy undies!

Well....it's Sunday and as of Thursday we've been toilet training! What an adventure :) so far it has been.....easy? Not what I was expecting to say!! But true. I followed the principles of "potty training 1-2-3" by Gary Ezzo (same guy that wrote babywise) and it's been fantastic. It focuses on the child being dry, rather than on going to the toilet. Which makes perfect sense as we adults don't aim to go to the toilet, but we do aim to have dry pants!! 

So far we have had one accident (yesterday during lunch) - but the rest of the time has been smooth sailing!! 

Although OB hadn't had cordial or chocolates before, we figured this was the time (because the book said so!). And boy did it work a treat! Getting a smarty for being "dry" was an insanely massive incentive for OB (imagine tasting chocolate for the first time - great incentive!!). We got a new drink bottle (which wasn't necessary) and he drank loads of liquids and had lots of ewes to do. Every 15 minutes on day 1 I asked him "are you dry?" And he checked, if he was dry he got a smartie and then sat on the potty to "stay dry". If he did a wee he got another smartie. If he was wet (which hasn't happened) then we would just change his undies and continue on - no harsh words). Day #2 I asked him the question about every half hour to every hour. It was great. Mainly because I wasn't dishing out smarties every 15 mins (which did make for a pretty hypo child). 

I did put a nappy on him for his 3hr day sleep - but yesterday when he woke up his nappy was dry! Yay! 

Today we are going to church, so....he woke up at 7.45 (he still goes to bed at 7pm!) and did a wee on the potty (he asked for a grape as a treat so I gave him 2!). The we. Had breaky and I asked him if he wa dry as we finished breaky. He said yes, got his treat and then sat on the potty and did a big wee. So exciting! Now I will give him lots to drink, so hopefully he does his ewes before church and I'll stop giving him drinks about an hour before church. So the plan is to take him to the potty (after asking the question) at 9am, at 9.30am and then I'll take him when we get to church at about 9.45am. Hopefully he can last through church then!! We will see! I might go with him to crèche. And I'll probably take the potty with us!

So all in all...it's been such a pleasant experience so far! Looking forward to what the next few weeks bring :)

An update on OB's current routine at 2yrs 1 month old.

Wakes up anytime from 7am - 8am (we do get the occasional sleep in till 8.30!)

Quite a routine morning: breakfast, chores (he vacuums and can dust and sweep), calendar time (which is our learning time/focus time - we follow a program from www.abcjesuslovesme.com which covers manners, shapes, colours, letters, songs and the bible).

Then he has a 1hr room time by himself (which he absolutely loves - grew out of playpen time, which I would highly recommend doing from day dot). 

Then he will have upto an hour outside by himself playing  with the dog and his tractors and toys.

At 11am We have book time - he sits at the kitchen table or on the lounge and reads a few books I've selected (this time is tailored to him sitting when mummy says and reading what mummy says to aid in him sitting still in church on a Sunday).

11.30 is lunch time and then in bed by 12 for his day nap. I'm thinking of extending this a bit and putting him down at 12.30 but haven't done it yet.

Then he's up at 3. We have some outside time and just general free time. At 5pm it's quiet time - books, puzzles, whatever. Then a bath at about 5.30. If there's time between dinner and bath he can watch approx 20 mins of DVDs (tractor tom or playschool or spot). 

Dinner is at 6pm.

A about 6.30 it's into his bedroom. We read one book together. Then it's lights out - but we've started doing 10 mins of quiet bible reading by himself or lights out (he always chooses bible). Then lights out and one of us lays with him for 10 mins just chatting about his day. These suggestions were from a brilliant book called "Creative family times" by Hadidian and Wilson (another great toddler resources is "what every child should know along the way" by Gail Martin).

Then by 7pm it's door shut and he's down for the night.

A well as being in his big bed, he now has no safety rail, which is sad because he's growing up way too fast!!

I think that's all the updates for now. Xx

What have we been upto? Its been a while since I wrote a post so its time for an update.

Last week we went to Broken Hill. That is a 10 hour drive from our place. Quite significant with an 18 month old. We split up the trip - 4 hrs to Nyngan - stayed the night - then another 6 hours to BH.

I am one of those parents who doesn't let their child watch TV and would NEVER let their child watch a dvd player whilst in the car....oh how that has changed! A dvd player is basically an essential for a 10 hour trip (well...for a 4 hr trip or a 6 hr trip). I dug through our dvd's - and found two child friendly ones (a blinky bill one that I won in some competition and a Colin Buchannan one that I got from playgroup last year). I put them both on the ipad and thought I wouldn't need them but had them just incase. I am SO glad that I had them!!!

They were fantastic for after about 3 hours when OB was sick of looking out the window, we had finished the snacks, thrown the drink bottle on the floor, thrown all the toys away, pulled his shoes and socks off and was just full on red faced screaming. I attached the ipad to the back of the seat, put on blinky and bam...silence! He just stared at that screen for about half an hour! WOW. What a difference it made! It was great. I only ended up putting one of the 4 episodes of blinky on (im technologically challenged) so it went for 30 mins but that was enough time to calm him down into a relaxed state and he seemed to be fine when it finished.

We stayed with Joshs uncle, which was fabulous. OB slept each night 7-6.30am. Usually he sleeps till 7am but I think it was a tad colder in his room...not that i'm complaining - its still a great sleep! He did get a bit out of routine being away and being spoilt rotten.

We have been home for 3 days now and he is SLOWLY getting back to normal. We have had a few tantrums since getting back - mainly due to food. Because we were on holidays we just couldn't be bothered to be good parents and just let him eat whatever (and by that I mean muslei bars, babycinos, muffins and a few biscuits). And I think the main downfall was letting him eat WHENEVER. Usually he only eats breakfast, lunch and dinner so having snacks and eating whenever made him quite demanding for food and not so keen to eat his main meals (because he was full from snacks). So we are getting back to normal. It was really hard to stretch him out today when he was pointing to his char (obviously hungry) at 5.30 and we dont have dinner till 6. Luckily hubby distracted him and we were able to drag it out and he ate all his dinner (lots of veggies yay).

Well thats where we are at the moment. OB gets his 18 month needles tomorrow. Hopefully they won't affect him (none of the others did).

All in all - holidays are great. Having OB sleep all night and behave in the car (there were about 2 outbursts over the 20hrs of driving) made a big difference, I can't imagine how exhausting it would be if that wasn't the case.

Weaning

I spent a whole Thursday deciding how I would gradually wean my 14.5month old off breastfeeds...I even made a plan - I wrote it on paper. I was set - to start in a few weeks, when I was emotionally ready. That night I went to feed OB as usual, nope, he didn't want it. He just wanted to smile at me and touch my face. After trying for 5 minutes I asked my husband to get a sippy cup of milk, which OB also declined. So I red him his usual story and put him down. Straight to sleep. I sat on the verandah hoping he would need me to go in and feed him. He didn't. I was devastated. But at least I still had the morning feed, right? Wrong! He slept from 7pm until 6.30am as he usually does and when I went to give him a feed he just wanted to be up, he walked to his high chair and wanted to sit in it. He knew exactly what he did (and didn't) want. He hasn't had a feed since. His nighttime routine now looks like this:

6pm dinner. Bath. Sippy cup of milk in kitchen. Say goodnight to leppy (stuffed toy). Story. Cuddle. Lights out. Prayer. Place him in bed. Put his music on and walk out the door. We rarely hear a peep out of him.

I assume that means he was ready to wean.

Our day routine for 13 - 15 months looks like this:

6.30 - 7 am wake up (if he's not up by 7 I wake him)
7am breakfast as a family

10am - nap #1

12 - lunch

3pm - nap #2

6pm dinner, bath etc

7pm bed

This age is just amazing :) he can obey instruction such as "OB can you bring your shoes to mummy" and "please stand at your chair for breakfast". It's amazing to see him develop these skills. He will sit for "book time" in his high chair for upto 45 minutes after lunch (which is amazing considering he couldn't do 5 minutes when we first started at 10 ish months.

Camping

I was so nervous about camping...but it was unnecessary. We did OB's normal bedtime routine, put him down at 6.30 in the tent, in the portacot and bam, he went to sleep. We tiptoed around him getting us into the tent - which was pretty noisy considering the zips and getting stuff from bags, but he stayed sleeping right through till 6.30am. I was so relieved.

We had such a great time camping. OB loved every minute of it. The second night he woke at 2am for an hour and then woke for the day at 5, but still proved that we could successfully go away overnight!it was great to trial it somewhere so close to home, so that we could sneak home if we had to.

We are currently moving to a 12 month old routine which pretty much lines OB's meals up with our meals. Cutting back to 2 breastfeeds a day (morning and night). His nighttime routine won't change - 5.30 dinner, bath, story and then bed.