Self potty-training?
Due to the recent warm weather, I often simply don’t dress the Munchkin. She just wears her cloth diaper and diaper pants during the day, and jammies or a nightshirt for bed. While this keeps her laundry down and provides coolness for her, it has had one unexpected side effect – diaper access.
While she has tried stuffing things down her pants before – rocks, pinecones, small toys like Duplos – she’s now trying to put them into her diaper. In doing this, she has discovered that she can… um… scratch herself if she likes. I hope I put that tactfully enough. Anyway, she has also decided that a poopy diaper is no longer a comfortable thing. Thursday evening, I was working on getting some cards made when I realized that it was too, too quiet. I turned around to find her with brown fingers, digging away.
Horrified, I led her to her room to clean her up (all the while saying things like, “Don’t touch the wall!” and other useless comments), and decided after I changed her to pop her in the bathtub. She loves the tub, so that gave me the time to investigate and disinfect what she may have touched. She got thouroughly cleaned up, and then I got her out.
Now, one of the things we’ve let her do post-baths is run around the house naked. While being amusing to us, she loves the freedom. However, as I was getting out a clean set of pajamas, she came squealing into her room, clearly upset. I thought she had tripped or stepped on something and actually hurt herself – until she pointed to a puddle in the hallway outside of her room. Oops. She wasn’t upset that she had peed – she was upset that it was running down her legs. I got a baby wipe, cleaned her up, put a diaper on her, and got the Resolve out and took care of the spot in the hall. At least it wasn’t solid waste.
When the Webmaster got home, I told him about her adventures in bodily functions. While he was contemplating this turn of events, I informed him that there was a bright side to this. If she’s that uncomfortable with poop, and with the sensation of pee running down her legs, then it will only take a few accidents when she is older for her to decide that the potty is a good thing. While I understood the reaction to the poopy diaper, it was her reaction to having an “accident” that really surprised me. I would expect to find that in an older toddler, not one nearly 19 months old.
I could use a break on the potty-training, Lord God, if You’re taking notes at the moment. It would sure cut back on the diaper laundry around here after Munchkin #2 is born. I sure don’t expect it to happen now, but when the Munchkin is 2 years old, I think this would be a great thing.
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