My older daughter who is almost 2 1/2 years old is almost completely potty trained. I say almost because so far she has only pooped in the toilet a total of about 5 times in the last month. Two factors I've observed that is playing a role here are:1) Inconsistency: So the other downside of working part of the time is that we have different caregivers taking care of my children while I am working. Therefore, any sort of potty training is usually reserved for when I am around or when my mom is around. The other times, we keep her in the pull-up because we are sparing my dad from having to wash poopy underwear! So I believe that this process of training is taking longer because we're giving the message that sometimes it is 'ok' to poop in the pull-up. Now, despite wearing the pull-up my daughter will urinate in the toilet and not have any "peeing accidents". I think that is because of reason #2...
2) Patience/Timing: When training her to pee in the toilet, you pretty much know that if she is loaded up with fluids and about 2 hours have gone by and she has not peed, plop her on the toilet and she will have to pee. The problem with training for pooping is that you never really know when she has to poop. Plus there are other factors like she may be a little more constipated than usual so would need to strain more. Bottom line is that she will have to sit on the toilet longer if we want her to poop on the toilet. So far she has pooped about 5 times for us in the toilet in the last month. Now, I have witnessed the popping only twice and all the other times are with my mom. I think my problem is I don't feel I have the time to just sit with her indefinitely until she poops. After what feels like 5 min to me, I would ask her "Do you really need to go now or do you want to go later?" The first time she pooped in the toilet for me, she told me "now" and I waited longer. Sure enough she pooped! Now, sometimes she will say 'later' and I let her go so that I can attend to other things (like my 4 mos old who I am still breastfeeding every 3 hrs) The other day, she said "now" and did poop a little bit. But then I let her off the toilet (because I couldn't wait any longer) and then she pooped the rest of it in the underwear! Haha.. the joys of having a toddler around!
Sigh. So I think I just need to somehow block the time out and just wait with her if she tells me she has to go. At the same time... I can not let the other child starve so the trick as usual is to find the balance.
Ok... I hear the older one calling me.. maybe it is toilet time...
