Tuesday, March 24, 2009

URINE-SANE

Maybe “YOU’RE” not, but I am. I’m drowning; drowning in pee, and laundry covered in pee.

Baboo has turned into the Diaper Shedding Bandit on top of WAKING UP 2 last week (that’s a whole ‘nother post) and I’m going crazy. Seriously. Every time I turn my back for 2 seconds, she is taking her diaper off and then summarily peeing all over the floor or a bed somewhere. Nap time yesterday was a nightmare with 5 diaper changes in an hour and a half. And 2 at bed time (with the expensive night time diapers with liners) and several more accidents on the floor in the afternoon.

Sometimes we get lucky and she’ll pee in the potty, but we have way more misses than hits. Way more. We’ve tried pull ups and we’ve tried just plain undies with no difference. It doesn’t seem to matter.

I’ve asked her NOT to take it off, demanded that she not take it off, and she looks at me and says “Ok, Mama” and then proceeds to do it anyway. ARGH. Then she asks me “You happy, Mama?”. Uh.. no. Not exactly as I clean up more pee. What’s funny is that when she takes the diaper off, she puts it in the garbage and goes to get another one. I wouldn’t really care if she could get it on and not make a mess, but well… she’s 2.

This morning, after I hear “Moooom, Baboo took her diaper off again”, and before I completely snapped, I resorted to bribery. Baboo LOVES m&m’s and I happened to have some left over from her cake. I filled 2 jars (with tight fitting lids because I know she’ll try to get into them) and showed them to her. I said – “if you put the pee in the potty, you can have an m&m” and then placed the colourful jar within her view. She said “right now?” And I said YES… even at 8 am. She sat down and tried to pee, but nothing. But she really tried, so I gave her one to show I was serious. She tried again later, made it and I rewarded her with praise and an m&m. And then she started asking every 2 seconds for them. And then Mouse wanted to know if SHE could have m&m’s every time Baboo got one. We have not gone pee on the potty again today, BUT we've had 2 accidents on the floor and 3 changes of clothes. Uh yeah.

Sigh. I think that bribery is going to backfire on me big time.

Anyway, I don’t know if she’s really READY for potty training, though I had thought that we would try it more intensively next week while Mouse is out on spring break. It will mean that I do nothing else except shadow her everywhere so I can catch the pee-pee moments and encourage her with positive reinforcements instead of trying not to have an aneurysm every time she does this. I don’t want to “punish” her, but I’m not really sure how to deal with this.

Any suggestions? Please! Help! Throw a book! Throw some towels! Throw some advice! Throw a life boat!

2 comments:

Rebecca said...

I'm stumped. Unless you can convince her that taking her diaper off after using the potty is the reward.

Or bring out the duct tape!

Anonymous said...

One way that is sure to keep her from taking off her diaper... duct tape! Yes, this is advice from your favorite childless engineer.... but I'm sure it will work! Have you ever read the book "you can't just duct tape a baby"?

Keep up with the bribery. Its something they understand. A cuple of m&ms a day is not going to alter her health. If she understands, you can change it to... if you leave your diaper on all day you can have an m&m after dinner.

Good luck. disgusting.