Yesterday, I realized that Nisarg cried for a couple of minutes before peeing, and was able to rush him to the wash basin in time to take a diaper free leak quite a few times. I was thrilled, right until before the MIL told me to call up the doctor. Why is it that the baby is crying when he isn’t even wet yet? He must be in pain.
There went my joy at having successfully conquered the gas pains a couple of days ago. In a panic, I called up the doctor, who was busy, busy again, and again, till I could have reached throught the phone to yank the receptionist’s hair and to tell her that this was an emergency!
Finally, I was able to speak with her, and…. anti-climax. Like so many of my worried calls, this one barely rated a yawn. No, nothing to worry about. Babies do it. He will grow out of it….
Why in the world was everyone acting like this was a bad thing to be concerned about or grown out of?
It looked to me that my baby was telling me clearly that he didn’t like being wet, and was crying in anticipation of the upcoming wet, or to tell me, or from fighting the losing battle to prevent the wet…. In any case, it told me that he needed to take a leak and to provide him with appropriate support. Which is good, right? Isn’t that the direction to grow in in any case?
He’s small. So what? He just doesn’t like being wet.
Just to test, I put a disposable diaper on him, like for the night, and he didn’t cry for hours. Possibly, because it doesn’t let him get uncomfortably wet like the cloth ones. So obviously it wasn’t pain from passing urine.
The other mystery got solved in a flash of insight. Why was he telling us so clearly all of a sudden? I realized that he was telling me all through, but what with the gas making him cry all the time, and my own incompetence with understanding him, I didn’t realize till the Bonnisan drops cured the gas and thus the overtiredness. Once the clutter was removed, the normal crying for communication remained, making it seem like it started suddenly.
This was further “confirmed” when I woke up from a nap to change his diaper. I knew that I had to change his diaper even before the crying registered fully and I awoke. Indeed, he was about to take a leak. So somewhere, unconsciously, I had learned to recognize his “pee” crying.
Wow!!!! It suddenly makes me feel like I understand him so much better.
Update: So much for my excitement. This is actually a method to train babies to potty 😀 A reader here, Laurie has shared the following links:
- http://www.TimL.com/ipt
- http://www.pottywhisperer.com
I’ve read them very briefly, but they seem informative. Looks like Nisarg and I discovered a very good way of learning to toilet train all by ourselves. See, I knew this guy was smart. Thank you Laurie.
Update two: Oops. Looks like “Elimination Communication” is a method too. A friend called it so, and I thought she was just talking about what I was telling her happened with us….
How exciting! This blog might inspire some others to look for potty signals.
I hope things continue to go well for you.
Here are a few links in case others would like to read more about this topic:
http://www.TimL.com/ipt
http://www.pottywhisperer.com
Thanks Laurie, for finding our discovery exciting, and for those links. I had always thought that people train toddlers to do all this, and was quite surprised that it just happened (actually Nisarg demanded it). Quite interesting to know that this is actually a way of going about things, even though we didn't know about it.
It is possible!! Kids guide you. My older son (who is now 9) was totally potty trained by the time he was 18 months old. He was sitting at his mini potty seat by the time he was 6 months and before that I would hold him for a pee and he would go.
My younger one who turns 3 this month was little harder to potty train. He was scared and refused to sit at the potty. I have to mention that I didn't have the time or the patience that I had with the older one because I had started working when the younger one was around a year old. We had our potty routine set by the time he was a year old. But he wasn't always able to signal before he peed. And can you believe it…he trained himself on a 19 hour drive. He refused to pee when we stopped for him…..and he peed after we reached our destination. Since that day, he would tell us when he wanted to pee. This was when he was 2 years and a month old.
Now I've off to check the links provided by Laurie:)