Finding Grace and Love in Potty Training?

Potty training. Again. While I’ve done this twice already with varying degrees of difficulty, I still find the process to be exhausting. Most days, I want to throw all the cloth diapers out the window – other days I want to chuck the potty seat and trainers along with my determination to teach this skill.

What transition are you working on? Moving your child from your bed to a crib, weaning from breast milk to bottle or cup or giving up diapers in exchange for the potty are not small tasks. And even if you’ve done them before, the reality is you’ve never made this change with this child. It’s all new to him or her. Some changes come about quickly while others drag on stubbornly. That’s where we are with potty training.

Before giving up (or forcing my will upon the poor child), I’ve found it’s helpful to examine my motives behind making the transition at this time.

Motivations for change often fall into three categories:

  1. Shame/embarrassment. You know you should have taught this skill sooner but didn’t. Maybe you waited until your baby was nine-months old before introducing a bottle. (I’ve been there.) Or you waited until your four-year-old became so big that you can no longer sleep in your own bed comfortably and must demand they sleep elsewhere. The logical part of your brain knows that developmentally, there is no reason why your child is unable to make the change. But the emotional parent part of your brain is too afraid to make it happen.
  2. Anger/resentment. Do you feel so tired of the way things are and find yourself blaming your child? Maybe you wonder why they can’t just do (or stop doing) this one thing. After a lot of introspection, I realize I’m probably in this category. I don’t feel resentment, but after more than eight years of changing diapers; I’m very, very tired of it. Perhaps I’m ready to move on whether my daughter is or not.
  3. Competition. You really want to tell the grandparents, or other moms, that your little prodigy accomplished this transition easily and early. You want to brag a little about whatever milestone would give you this edge on being a good mother. It sounds shallow, and you will probably deny you’ve ever felt this way, but chances are you really are competing with another person’s timetable.

I’m tired of changing diapers, that’s for sure. I suspect there’s a little more going on as well. This is my youngest of three children and we are certainly not having any more. I stopped trying to hold on to the baby years mostly because she refused to stay in the baby phase, reaching all of her physical milestones many months before her older sisters.

But I also prefer to breeze through a transition without marking its passing; hoping to avoid any sadness or longing on my part. She gave up breastfeeding sometime in her 17th month, but I do not have a memory of the “last” time nor did I want to dwell on it. I loved breastfeeding and while a part of me misses this connection; I knew that marking an official end would be too painful. We simply moved on.

Potty training will also mark an end to my baby and toddler years. This independence will mean I no longer have any babies in my care. No more diapers. While it will be sweet freedom, it will also mark a major transition for me as a mother. Dragging out this transition for so many months just prolongs the pain.

I’ve come to realize that the one thing that is required of me at this time is love. My daughter will be potty trained in the near future. (I sometimes chant this just to convince myself.)

It’s my job to love her, to love the stage we are in and to use this love to fuel my patience.

It’s this love that will also lift me out of sadness when I realize there are no more babies, no more toddlers and someday, no more little girls in my care.

So, I’ve made a few changes to how we go about potty training. I removed the changing table from her room. We don’t use it anyway and it helps us solidify the transition taking place. I also added disposable diapers to my shopping list. While we use only two diapers a day for nap and bedtime, I need the mental and physical break from washing them. We’ll continue making the transition using consistent behaviors, but I’ll relax my timetable and renew my love for caring for a toddler.

Mom Dare: Life is filled with one transition after another. Look at what changes you are trying to make in your life and with your children. Examine your motivations, remove the negative emotions and concentrate on love. Use this positive emotion to feed your actions each day as you bring about a positive change.

AP Month 2010 Blog Carnival Updated Information

AP Month 2010 begins on Friday and earlier this month I posted details about the AP Month 2010 Blog Carnival. Here’s a bit of the previous post:

During AP Month 2010, parents are challenged to re-examine their daily physical activities, nourishing routines and habits, and learn new ways to fuel both healthy emotional and physical growth. The “envelope” in which we deliver guidance to our children provides the underlying degree of emotional connection and feeling that can become associated with physical nourishment and activity.

Explore with us the challenges we face in raising children who know the healthiest ways to be nourished in every aspect of life. Participate in our Attachment Parenting Month blog carnival and share your experiences in keeping our children “Full of Love.”

I directed individuals to our Contact Form for blog submissions but unfortunately we are now having a problem with that script. Instead please submit a link to your submission directly to me via email – apispeaks [AT] attachmentparenting [DOT] org. Thank you!

AP Month 2010 Blog Carnival – Full of Love

October is Attachment Parenting Month! The theme for AP Month 2010 is “Full of Love: parenting to meet the emotional and physical needs of children” with a focus on preventing childhood obesity.

During AP Month 2010, parents are challenged to re-examine their daily physical activities, nourishing routines and habits, and learn new ways to fuel both healthy emotional and physical growth.  The “envelope” in which we deliver guidance to our children provides the underlying degree of emotional connection and feeling that can become associated with physical nourishment and activity.

Explore with us the challenges we face in raising children who know the healthiest ways to be nourished in every aspect of life.  Participate in our Attachment Parenting Month blog carnival and share your experiences in keeping our children “Full of Love.”
Continue reading “AP Month 2010 Blog Carnival – Full of Love”

API’s Use Nurturing Touch and Safe Sleep Blog Carnival

Welcome to the latest installment of the Attachment Parenting International Principles of Parenting blog carnival. This month’s carnival will cover API’s 4th and 5th Principles of Parenting – Use Nurturing Touch and Ensure Safe Sleep, Physically and Emotionally. If you’re interested in participating in a future carnival, please visit the API Blog Carnival Schedule for more details.

The Importance of Infant Massage
Guest Post for API Speaks by Barbara Nicholson

The mothers of India have given the world one of the most important parenting tools known to humanity: infant massage. It is probably hard to imagine raising a baby without this gentle, everyday experience, but in some western cultures (particularly the U.S.) it is just being discovered!

A Mother’s Kiss
Living Peacefully with Children

When we were expecting our first child, I bought the requisite newborn hats. Afterall, every new baby needed hats to keep their little head warm. When our son was born, instinct kicked in. As I brought him to my chest to snuggle him close, my head automatically dipped, taking in his new baby smell and kissing the top of his wet little head.

Our Nighttime Nurturing
Maman A Droit

For a while, Baby thought 2:30 AM was playtime. It’s our fault really. For one thing, Hubby often stayed up that late doing grad school homework last semester. It also then worked out that staying up until 3 AM meant Baby slept during the day while Daddy was gone, and played while Daddy was home to admire all his tricks.

Reconnection
Picklebums

We parent our children to sleep…. all of them, even the six year olds who don’t necessarily need us to. For all three kids it seems bed time is the time to catch up on closeness.

Where the Baby Sleeps
Living Peacefully with Children

“Good. That’s where babies should be – snuggled with their mamas. Babies need to stay with their mothers in order to stay warm and keep breathing, and so they remember to nurse throughout the night.” This was what had been passed down to her through generations of women.

Frequently Asked Questions About Sleeping With Your Baby
Baby Dust Diaries

I often get asked the same questions about our Family Bed. Aellyn has slept between my husband and I since the day she came home (she also slept in bed with me at the Birth Center – something some hospitals will not allow).

Sleeping Safe and (Psychologically) Sound
Connected Mom

Bedsharing is an ancient concept. Still practiced all over the world, bed sharing has become a subject of controversy in the United States. Often the debate centers around the safety issues regarding bed sharing.

Take Your Kids’ Kisses
mamaTRUE

I recently discovered the Secret Society of Happy People. While I don’t think I have figured out how to walk through life with the requisite joy to become a member, I’m using them as an example in my quest to learn how to be happy.

Ensuring safe sleep – meeting the needs of parents and child
Little Snowflakes

When Dylan was 6 weeks old, I enrolled us in a mom and baby class at a local parenting center. I figured it would be a good way to meet other moms and to force myself to get dressed and out of the house.

Infant Massage: An encounter of love that goes beyond the borders of the body
Guest Post for API Speaks courtesy of Infant Massage USA

A touch, a look, a gesture… are encounters of love where the magic of innocence and candor unite. Mothers, fathers and babies are immersed in an atmosphere of tenderness and simplicity, in which voices, whispers, songs, looks and movements are party to a loving and eternal relationship.

API June Blog Carnival
Journey to the Simple Life

My journey towards co-sleeping began years ago, I think it was a 20/20 special about it. I thought it was odd at the time, boy, how my mind has been changed!

Infant Massage: An encounter of love that goes beyond the borders of the body

The following is a guest post courtesy of Infant Massage USA for API’s Use Nurturing Touch blog carnival.

A touch, a look, a gesture… are encounters of love where the magic of innocence and candor unite. Mothers, fathers and babies are immersed in an atmosphere of tenderness and simplicity, in which voices, whispers, songs, looks and movements are party to a loving and eternal relationship.

It is an instant that will prolong and impregnate the cellular memory of the skin that has been touched in a special way, making that moment unique and repeatable in time and space until the end of life.

Infant massage is the live voice of humanity, of the love for one another, of the complexity of a moment’s intimacy. Its fundamental objective: love, affection and the forming of bonds, so that the children of the world may be loved, valued and respected. Its essence is so noble that beyond all these gifts, it has added value for the cognitive, emotional and psychomotor development of the child.

During the massage the baby’s senses are alert. When she hears the sound that indicates the beginning of the massage, she is able to anticipate the response. The emotion produced by the voices of the mothers and fathers that sing or speak to her are transformed into movement. The aroma of space, mother and father, and of the oil being rubbed on the body, enrich the baby’s sense of smell. The skin, as a medium receptor of sensations and perceptions, activates other mechanisms, always with positive results, which improve or regulate the immune, digestive, respiratory and endocrine systems. The mother’s only objective and interest within her visual field is to make meaningful all that is taking place.

This systematic set of actions will unleash – like the expansive waves of concentric circles made by a pebble thrown into the water – processes of attention, concentration and memory; the capacity to anticipate events, knowledge of her bodily schema and, later, bodily consciousness. A whole that projects a child that is emotionally harmonious and committed, with herself, her family and her society.

Lic. Virginia Latouche de Levy, CIMI/CEIM
Caracas- Venezuela

Ensure Safe Sleep, Physically and Emotionally Blog Carnival Deadline is Friday

The deadline for the next Attachment Parenting International Principles of Parenting Blog Carnival is this Friday, June 11. The theme for this month is Ensure Safe Sleep, Physically and Emotionally.

Here is an excerpt from API’s 5th Principle of Parenting:

Parents can help their children learn that bedtime or naptime is a peaceful time; a time of quiet connection and snuggles. Even though young children may outgrow needing to eat during the night, they might still require comfort and reassurance.

We will also be hosting the carnival entries for API’s 4th Principle of Parenting – Use Nurturing Touch.

For more information about participating in the carnival, read this informative post and then submit the link to your blog post via the API Speaks Contact Form.

The Importance of Infant Massage

This post is part of the 2010 API Principles of Parenting blog carnival, a series of monthly parenting blog carnivals, hosted by API Speaks.

The mothers of India have given the world one of the most important parenting tools known to humanity: infant massage. It is probably hard to imagine raising a baby without this gentle, everyday experience, but in some western cultures (particularly the U.S.) it is just being discovered! In her book Infant Massage: A Handbook for Loving Parents, American author Vimala McClure describes her visits to India in the early 1970’s and witnessing mothers all over India giving their babies a daily massage. She was fascinated by this beautiful ritual and soon learned that it was much more than just a sweet gift to sooth a baby, it was a deep spiritual, physical, and emotional connection that had tremendous benefits to the whole family.

Of the five major senses of smell, taste, sight, hearing, and touch have you ever thought about which of these senses are critical for a human being’s survival? Touch is the only sense that a human being cannot live without. Yet in many modern cultures, parents provide very little touch to their children. Infants in the U.S. often spend a majority of their lives going from container to container (i.e. baby seats, infant carriers, car seats), rather than being picked up and held or receiving the nurturing touch necessary for healthy emotional and neurological development. Babies are now experiencing plagiocephaly or “flat head syndrome” because of spending more time on their backs in cribs, swings and carseats.
Continue reading “The Importance of Infant Massage”

Babywearing, Infant Massage, and More

Although today was supposed to be the Use Nurturing Touch blog carnival, we are going to push it back one month and combine it with next month’s carnival on Ensuring Safe Sleep, Physically and Emotionally. If you’ve already submitted your carnival post on nurturing touch, rest assured that it will make it into next month’s carnival post. If you’re here looking for information on using nurturing touch including babywearing, infant massage, and more, fear not for I have compiled a list of links for you to peruse.

Use Nurturing Touch – One of API’s Eight Principles of Parenting
Babies are born with urgent and intense needs and depend completely on others to meet them. Nurturing touch helps meet a baby’s need for physical contact, affection, security, stimulation and movement. Parents who choose a nurturing approach to physical interactions with their children promote development of healthy attachments. Even as children get older their need to stay connected through touch remains strong.
Continue reading “Babywearing, Infant Massage, and More”