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Strollerderby
Play while you pee!
There are so many potty training techniques being bandied about: potty training videos, potty training books, rewards systems (OK, bribery), late potty training, early potty training, sign language, potty training boot camps and even “elimination communication.”
Sure, handing out M&Ms or stars on a chart every time your child uses the toilet can be an effective way to get kids to ditch the diapers. But, my money’s on this one: Toylets.
You heard it here first, folks: Toilet training is going digital.
Word on the streets of Tokyo is that the entertainment company Sega has installed toilets in public places featuring urine-controlled games. How do they work? There’s a digital screen at eye-level, with a pressure sensor in the toilet/urinal. In order to play the games, you need to hit the sensors with your urine stream.
Cloth diapers are better for the planet.
Cloth diapering isn’t for everyone, as Babble’s hilarious article from one mom who tried going cloth shows. It is work, and it’s work that involves handling your kids poop in a way disposable diapers let you largely avoid. Perhaps not for the easily disgusted.
Cloth diapers are best for the planet though, and arguably better for your baby. There’s a popular myth that the resources used to clean cloth diapers balance the scales of resource consumption, but it’s just not true. It’s a claim that was made 20 years ago in a faulty study. Not only was it never true, it’s less true now than ever. Washing machines have come a long way, as have diaper manufacturing processes. Both cloth and the disposables have gotten greener in recent years. But cloth is still better.
My 5-year-old crafting, one of the few things - until last week - that didn't make her cry.
“Those are the resolutions you want me to have! They’re not what I want!,” my 5-year-old shouted at me, fists clenched. She was right, of course. I was the one who asked her to make New Year’s resolutions to stop crying incessantly and to get better about making it to the potty in time. I can’t even remember what the blow-up was in reaction to, but it wasn’t the first time she’d thrown her independence in my face. ”You don’t control my body!” ”You can’t tell my poop what to do!” My daughter and I have been fighting the battle of the bowels for over a year, and I’ve been waging a war against wailing for even longer. This year, though, I finally figured out how to get my 5-year-old to stop complaining and misbehaving, and it was entirely by, well, accident.
I’m less Tiger Mother Amy Chua and more Erica Jong; I don’t believe there’s any one strict parenting method that will work for everyone, so I feel extraordinarily lucky to have stumbled upon this trick to keep my daughter yearning to behave well. This was a hard-won victory, too, considering that just the day before discovering it I was up late after a particularly tear-filled bedtime Googling “5 year old crying.” Surprisingly, I’m not alone. I noticed that when you type “5 year old cr” into Google, they offer you search suggestions in a drop-down list that indicate other parents feel my pain: “5 year old crying,” “5 year old cries about everything” and “5 year old cries.” Finally, they offer “5 year old crafts,” which are just about the only thing my 5-year-old doesn’t cry about.
We were leaving the grocery store the other night when I suddenly turned to my daughter and said, “You know, you were pretty well-behaved just now. I’m impressed. Out of 10 possible points, I’d say you scored an 8.” I could never have anticipated what happened next. She said, “I want 10 points! What can I do to get 10 points?” Continue reading »
Bedwetting is a problem most families face
Both my kids potty-trained young, and were quickly dry overnight. In both cases, I went for the radical potty-training trick of never putting a diaper back on the kid after the first time she peed in the potty. We had few accidents, by day or night.
After we moved, when my oldest daughter was four, she went through a bedwetting phase. This is a totally normal response to stress.
Most families have to deal with bedwetting at some point, whether it’s a chronic problem or a short-term one caused by stress or illness. Usually the problem solves itself as kids grow, but it can be frustrating to handle in the interim.
Babble has a new Bedwetting Guide for families dealing with wet sheets in the middle of the night. We’ve gotten the ball rolling with some great professional advice, but the real gems are in the comments. Head over and share your own stories, anecdotes, and tricks.
After the cut, read how my family dealt with our season of wet sheets, and my daughter’s own ingenious solution.
Public restrooms aren't always easy to find.
Marrying my wife meant becoming a member of the country club she’s always belonged to. And I’m not very into country clubs. Though ours is just fine, there are certain rules I find to be silly. One of them pertains to cell phones. They’re not allowed to be used on the premises. But we’ve got four kids. And if we’re at that club without them, it means they’re with a sitter. Which means we’re going to have our phones available no matter what the rules are.
Don’t get me wrong. I understand the spirit of the rule. Nothing is more annoying than a nouveau riche, middle aged woman talking about her British Virgin Island vacation plans a little too loudly at the table next to yours. But my thing is this — I would never forbid that woman from talking on her cell. Because, simply put, you can’t legislate taste. And I cling to that exact phrase when offering the following: I allow my kids to pee in public.
Playground or Potty?
Last summer I took my girls to a new playground in another part of town where they splashed in a play “river.” Trying to keep cool, I sat on a bench in the shade next to a water fountain. Despite the blistering New York in August heat, we were having a lovely time — until a little girl squatted next to me and urinated beside the water fountain.
If this had been a tiny tot who didn’t know any better, I might not have been as disturbed. But the girl was maybe 5 and her parents encouraged her to pee right there in public. I was tempted to say something to the parents, but I didn’t want to start a fight. And quite honestly, I was speechless. Continue reading »
Why is a potty-trained child forced to wear diapers?
A mother writes in to Lisa Belkin at The New York Times’ Motherlode blog asking whether she should be worried that her mother-in-law keeps putting her potty-trained son in diapers. Though the child is 3.5 and plenty capable of using the toilet, his grandmother, who watches him two times a week, insists that he wear a diaper.
There are many reasons for this mother to worry, the mother-in-law’s actions aren’t the biggest. Continue reading »
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