Goodbye diapers ... goodbye. Is your baby ready?
Learning to perform your needs in a urinal is a major challenge for most babies and young children. According to most pediatricians from 22 to 30 months, babies are at the ideal stage to learn to say goodbye to diapers. But how do you know if your baby is ready?
Obviously, this advance is the end result of a complex learning process without which the child would find it practically impossible to adapt to the potty. And is that it would be useless to sit every day on the child in his "duck" if we have not taught him before to distinguish which are the bodily signs that indicate that his bladder or intestines are full, for example.
Is your baby really ready to leave the diaper?
There are some indications that will put us on the track of whether our little one is ready or not say goodbye to their diapers because you can not remove the diaper prematurely. So, for example, the first signal to remove your baby's diaper will be when the child begins to warn with his rag tongue that he is wet or needs to pee.
It is also important for our son to know how to point out and name the parts of his body. Another symptom may be your desire to emulate. When children begin to be curious about what their parents and siblings do in the bathroom ... they begin to enter that stage in which it is much easier to teach them not to dirty their diapers.
In addition, your body has developed enough to be aware of your bowel movements and the relationship that exists between them and dirt. These movements tend to have a certain regularity and the child already knows that he can control them in some way.
First you have to familiarize yourself with the potty
Although there are those who defend the use of the toilet in front of the urinal, the truth is that it is always preferable for children to start with this substitute.
In order for our son to accept this change in his life, we can always resort to a few tricks. So, for example, we can encourage him to choose his own chamber pot. Also, before sitting on your favorite pet for the first time, we can let a few days pass so that they can slowly get used to each other.
In the same way, during these days, we can indicate with gestures and a lot of patience that "those things" correspond to the potty and not to the cumbersome diapers.
Capture the moment of need to go to the bathroom
Once the adaptation phase is over, the first step that we will have to take will be instantaneous: hunt the child as soon as he feels need to pee or poop to sit on the potty. Another equally effective method is to sit him after meals and just before going to bed at night.
In both cases, we will have to wait between six and seven minutes before lifting. Expecting more would be completely useless because children of this age tend to get nervous when they are forced to sit still for too long. In these occasions, we can stimulate our son, opening the tap of the sink or narrating some comic strips so that he is entertained.
His first 'feat': applause and awards
Y when the child performs his first "feat" ... Then, we will have to start the "great war". After a few applause for his great success, we will put diapers again for three or four hours, always trying not to prolong us longer, it is logical that the child still can not stand long. We will also pay special attention not to reduce too much these intervals because we could end up obsessing with the potty.
Several days later (no more than three or four) we will remove the diaper diaper definitely still at the risk of us finding one or another escape in any corner of the house. As in previous days we will continue to reward him with a caramel or biscuit every time he manages to endure and perform his needs in the potty.
Reduce awards little by little
As time goes by we will distance you from the prizes (only when you poop, for example) until you take them away for good.
Once you do not wet during the nap We will proceed to remove the corresponding diaper.
And as for night protection, do not hurry. It is better for the child to continue for a few more weeks with his little diapers to which, due to carelessness, the little one ends up getting cold because of an inevitable escape.
Tips for children to say goodbye to diapers
1. If you have leaks, do not scold him. During the first few days, it is normal for the child to escape the occasional pee. Do not scold him as we could get the opposite effect. The best in this stage are the praise and support of dad and mom.
2. Small pantomimes. A good trick for the child to learn to use his potty is to perform small pantomimes at home. Your favorite stuffed animal or we will sit before and after him. In this way, our little one will begin to contemplate his "duckling" with much more normality.
3. A routine to go to the bathroom. Whether we take care of the child as if someone else usually does it, we have to make sure that the child sits in his potty every three or four hours. Oddly enough, the routine is usually the best friend when it comes to children assimilate a habit.
4. Keep going. Once we have decided to take off the diapers, we will not march afterwards. Precisely for this reason, we will take special care in choosing the best moment. If it coincides with a trip or any other event it could be much more difficult for us to instill in the child the potty system.
5. First the diaper day, then the night. Until our child takes several naps without peeing between the sheets do not remove the diaper at night. This will be the best warning we will have that the child is ready.
To make the child more comfortable when sitting in his potty it is essential that you remove the clothes from the waist down, so that you can open your legs well. But, yes, do not remove the socks because the feeling of cold could cause the child to try to get up early.
Marisol Nuevo Espín
