Q&A: Only Urine Potty Trained and Co-sleeping Tips
My son is only urine potty trained
Question: I need some help with potty training. My son is “potty trained” successfully for urine, however, he’s continuing to do his business in his pull-up during nap time/and or bedtime. He has used the potty for poop before, but now we can’t get him to do it. Other Moms have suggested I take away the pull-ups, we did that and he pooped in his underwear. He’s been holding his stool until and I’m fearful about constipation issues. Should I just let him use the pull up in his bedroom during naps to poop in? We’ve tried the pull up in the bathroom too but he seems to prefer doing it in the bedroom during nap time. If we decide to use this method when should we transition to the potty? We always set him on the potty because he just won’t poop there.
Answer: Hello Om. Questions about potty training are high on the list of concerns for parents of toddlers. You don’t mention the age of your child, so I am assuming he is about three. Back in the day, when we were potty training our children (and our oldest is 51, youngest is 26), we hit on the idea of letting them run around in just a tee shirt: no diaper, no underpants, no pull-ups. We usually did this on vacation, or in the summer or when it was warm enough outside after the child turned two. This system lets the child himself connect his bodily sensations of “about to go” with what happens. This helps him/her be in control of what to do about it. This works best when the potty chair is available for him to use on his own. A child will use what a child gets to choose. Go to the store and let your child choose his own potty chair. If you are concerned about your child holding onto his stools (because he wants to be in control) and you are worried about this setting up constipation and painful, hard-to-pass stools, this approach can eliminate (no pun intended) the power struggle. Two resources that can help you work with your child: Our book for children, You Can Go To the Potty, and another book, Dr. Poo (which can be downloaded and printed for free from our AskDrSears website.)
My little one struggles to sleep on his own at 3.5 months
Question: My little one will only nap on me or in a wrap, so his bedtime starts in the wrap or on my lap, unless I really want an early night or go to bed together (co-sleep). He just doesn’t seem ready at 3.5 months to sleep alone and wakes quickly crying. Should I try harder to encourage him to sleep alone?
Answer: Emma, the encouragement you got from NaturalLivingObsessed is good: basically, she said, just hang in there, you are doing the right thing, your baby needs you at this young age of 3.5 (maybe by now 4) months. That said, it sounds like you need some help figuring out what is causing your baby to wake so quickly and start crying. So here are a few ideas. First, nurse your baby down to sleep on your bed (since you are already co-sleeping) but wait to get up for a long enough time to be sure baby has gone from light sleep to deep sleep. We call it the “limp limb” sign. If you find that your baby is waking up as soon as you remove your nipple from his mouth, then do that a lot more gradually, sneaking your nipple out by replacing the pressure he gets from having your nipple in his mouth with pressure you put on his chin by pressing upward with your finger from underneath. That gives you more freedom to move away more stealthily. Another thing you can do to create an environment conducive to baby staying asleep is to use quiet music or even a white-noise machine. These ideas are assuming your baby has no physical reasons for waking, like a cold or reflux. For more about painful causes for nightwaking, see our website AskDrSears.com, especially the section on reflux and the section on allergies baby might have to something in your diet.