From: ad4@prism.gatech.EDU (Angela Dubose)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Potty Training a 3.6 year old
Date: 26 Aug 92 18:03:55 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

Date: Wed, 26 Aug 92 13:26:36 -0400
From: ad4@prism.gatech.edu (Angela Dubose)
Message-Id: <9208261726.AA26809@prism.gatech.edu>
To: sgauch@ccs.northeastern.edu
Subject: Re: Nighttime Potty Training
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Cc: 

Just wanted to share my personal experience with my daughter with you.
When she was just almost to three she expressed the desire to quit
wearing diapers at night.  I bought a plastic cover for the bed and let
her go without them, made her potty right before going to bed and what
usually happened was that she would make it through some nights and not
others.  I had loads of advice about not letting her drink anything after
6:00 p.m. etc. to help her, but she was always too thirsty (and since I
drink a lot I didn't think it fair to cut off her liquids).  Finally, a
couple of the more quiet mothers (the ones who have kids around my child's
age that don't come hunt you down to give you advice but are always ready
with an answer when you come down to it and ask them) told me - start
observing how long she can last before she wets the bed.  When you've got
it figured out as to USUALLY the shortest period she can last without going
get up yourself right before this time is up and take her to the bathroom.
I did this for a few nights.  Got up - got this sleeping kid out and with
her half asleep explained that we were going to potty in the potty so she
didn't have to be miserable and upset the next morning by having an 'accident'.
The idea caught on!!! :-) :-) :-).  She was always put out with herself
and a little embarrassed when she had had an accident.  At first then I
just after about two weeks left the light on in the bathroom so she could
find it if she was awake enough and I think I slept more softly listening  
for her to be moving around in a trance to try to make it to the potty.
Within two months no more bedwetting - and not only that, ninety nine per-
cent of the time as long as she gets reminded to potty right before going
to bed she'll make it to morning without even having to wake up herself to
go potty.  She's turning five this week and we've had a dry bed for over
a year now except for a once in a blue moon accident now.   (The plastic 
on her bed made the bed 'hotter' and made her perspire more but that was
even more inspiration to quit wetting the bed - I told her when she made it
for two whole weeks without wetting the bed we'd take that noisy bothersome
thing off her bed - a promise which I kept).  However, one thing the 'quiet'
mothers also pointed out to me (the ones who had more than one child) was
that children have differing amounts of muscle control and sometimes they'll
have one child that although the heart is willing and the mind really wants
to hold it they just seemed physically incapable of doing so until they got
to be almost four or even some to five.  I have another daughter who just
turned two - she doesn't seem to be progressing as fast as Mandy did in 
general when it comes to potty training (a lot of this I believe is a differencein day care - the lady was great who had Mandy about letting her go to 
the potty and asking her about every 45 minutes if she needed to go whereas
Stephanie's teacher is just now starting to ask her (Steffie was pottying
at home by the time she was fifteen months but seemed to lose interest because
they didn't follow up at daycare.  Her daycare doesn't seem inclined to
take them to the potty until they hit the two year old class - and since
they seem great about everything else but this one thing - I haven't moved her).So I'm hoping that now that daycare is 'UP' on her wearing training panties and
in helping her to go potty she'll get back in the 'mode' again.  

Good luck - I hope this has been of some use or at least given you a different
perspective.


-- 
DUBOSE,ANGELA R
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp:	  ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!ad4
Internet: ad4@prism.gatech.edu
*************************************************************************

Trying to post to originally address bounced - sorry for redundancies in 
message resulting from forwarded bounced mail to newsgroup.

Thanks.

-- 
DUBOSE,ANGELA R
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp:	  ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!ad4
Internet: ad4@prism.gatech.edu
Newsgroups: misc.kids