Pottytraining

 I potty trained my first son, Mr N, when he was a month shy from age 3. It took about 6 days for him to “get it”. Only the wee. For pooh, it took him 2 weeks, and many many tears and frustrations on both me and his side. And many continuous accidents for the year there after. Nearly never wee accidents. Only pooh accidents. I believe that I trained him just a bit too early. I did it before he was ready.

Boeboe age 3y2m

So with Boeboe, I decided to wait until she’s ready. When she was 3 years and 2 months, and it was summer, I decided it’s a good time to potty train her. We started on the Saturday. When she woke up, I put a panty on her and she was extremely excited about the whole event. Soon there was an accident, and I started to train her in all earnestly. It went very well. She had 6 wee accidents. On Sunday, she loved hurrying to the potty, and only had 2 wee accidents. So far, she had no bowel movement. She was always a bit constipated, since her birth, so it was nothing strange. On Monday, she had no wee accidents. She ran like a pro to the potty every time out of her own accord. But around lunchtime, she had a pooh accident. It scared her so much, she cried. I cleaned her up, explained to her what happened and how she should run to the potty next time. It worked! It was her one and only pooh accident during potty training. I couldn’t be happier or prouder. Only 3 days to potty train a child completely!! Whoohoo!!! She was even dry at night, so we packed all nappies away and thought that part of our lives were over with.

How wrong were we…

A few days later, she had a wee accident. I made no big deal of it. Afterall, she wasn’t even potty trained for a week. When it happened again a few days later, I though “uh-oh”, we’re not as home free as we thought. But I guess it’s understandable for a 3-year old to have wee accidents. She was probably too engrossed in play to notice the urge.

This continued for about 6 months. She’d have a couple of accidents a week during the day. Nearly never at night. Only about once every 3 or 4 months. She’d never have pooh accidents either. Just this persistent wee accidents every now and then.

In the beginning I didn’t mind, and I didn’t make a big deal out of it. I never scolded her, though I would on occasion frown and tell her she must please run in time. At age 3 and a half, the accidents got more. It wasn’t once or twice a week anymore. Rather 3 or 4 times a week, sometimes a couple of times a day. I got tired of it and started to scold her. I tried different disciplining methods. Nothing worked.

Then, when she was just past age 4, she had a pooh accident. For more than a year, she never had a pooh accident. And now, suddenly out of the blue, she did. I was so surprised, I just cleaned her up and then forgot about it. Until it happened again. And again. And again. Some weeks there would be nothing. Other times there’d be 3 accidents or 5 or even 10. It had no pattern. The only thing is that at playschool (which she attended 3 mornings a week), it would not happen. She’d sometimes have wee accidents, but nearly never a pooh accident. Which caused me to believe it was under her control. I got angry. But it didn’t make a difference. I tried reasoning with her. I asked her why it’s happening, but she couldn’t answer me except that she “doesn’t feel it coming”.

Boeboe age 5 (with baby brother)

I was hands in the hair. At age 5, I took her to a play therapyst and a phsycologist. Both ruled out any behaviour problem or something terrible like molestation. The play therapyst did some months of therapy with Boeboe, and coached her to stop the accidents. When this failed, she told me that something physical must be wrong. This was the first child she’s seen for whom therapy has failed to stop the accidents.

So, I took her to the pediatrician. Firstly also because of some leg problem we noticed. But that’s a whole other story. While we were there, I asked the pediatrician about her accidents, and she did a quick examination and told me Boeboe is just naughty and need some strong disciplining. She did take a sample of her urine, and phoned me with the results. There was an E.Coli infection. She didn’t have any symptoms, but I decided to take the antibiotics the pediatrician suggested. But it made no difference to the wee accidents. Some weeks would be good, some would be horrible.

At age 6, I decided she’s now really old enough, and she would soon be starting grade 1. It cannot continue like this. So I took her to a urologist.

To be continued…