Diaper-less, yaya-less, bra-less

3 protagonists on this post: diaper, yaya and bra - er, the lack of them actually.  They're like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Let me start with the good.  Diaper-less.  We are diaper-less for the entire day! The only time Little Spanish Pinay wears diaper is at night.  A couple of weeks ago, I have embraced the fear of not putting on her diaper even when we are going out.  We've had a couple of accidents here and there but these past few days, we are accident-free the whole day.  There are even mornings that she'd wake up to a clean diaper.  She's starting to hold her pee during the night pretty well, ladies and gents!

So there goes the good part.

Yaya-less.  LSP's yaya left us.  She has found another job by the south of Spain and she was really happy about it.  I too am honestly happy for her and since hubby and I already planned for LSP to go to the daycare soon, this has saved us from giving her the "bad news" that we'll not need her service anymore... BUT not this soon.  She told me the news Monday of the past week and her last day would be Friday of the same week.  Hubby and I immediately had to revisit our plan.  We decided to ask the daycare if LSP can start by July instead of September.  The daycare gladly accommodated our request.  Now, the only problem was the last 3 weeks of June without yaya.  Hubby took a 2-week vacation so he can take care of LSP while I work and then I took the last week of June (plus 1st and 2nd of July) so I can take care of her while hubby goes back to work.

Not really that bad as I believe it's also a good timing. I've been getting worked up with how yaya's been a bit lazy around the house and was actually looking forward to becoming yaya-less but I've had dilemmas as I feel bad letting her go... knowing that it'll be (and it has been) difficult for her to find a job where we live.  This was his only source of income.  But fate fixed my dilemma and even gave a better opportunity for LSP's now-ex-yaya.

Bra-less.  With all the ruckus and changes going on, lately my head does not start to kick even until late afternoon.  One time, I forgot to put my bra on upon leaving the house.  I'm not used to going out the house without wearing my bra, ok?  Now, I know am not blessed (at all) in that area so they're not really an attention grabber but... I am quite blessed in the "tip of the iceberg" area so without my bra on, they are always looking like I am cold, if you get the drift.  When I realized I this, I felt so uncomfortable I started walking like I hunchback with my arms crossed like a mummy and eyeballs going from left to right.  But later on, I realized people could just care less. In a country where topless and nudists are quite a common scenarios in the beach,  seeing nipples behind a bra-less shirt is as normal as seeing a bus in the street.  So I straightened my back, relaxed my arms, put my chin up high and strut me self.  Man, that was liberating!   The ugly part in here is the part where I seem to be running around like a headless chicken lately... see, I barely have time for blogging not even to remember to put everything I need to put on befoer going out the house.  Anyhoo... what is going out bra-less compared to going out with chocolate in my crotch? 

ta-tah for now!

The one where she kept denying she did some serious business...

This is sort of a potty update.  I regre to say that I haven't been religious with our potty training.  She started getting used to sitting down on the toilet bowl or on potty but I really don't know well how to teach her to tell us when she needs to go.  What's been going on is that she got used to the routine every morning upon waking up to sit down on the toilet bowl and do her thing.  During the day,  I got used to reading her signs and would sit her on the potty whenever I see her showing these signs.

Lately, she has already learned to tell us when she needs to poo.  Almost always, she does this but not for peeing.  For some reason, she doesn't mind having this kind of accident.  Around 11 months, I let her go around the house without diaper so she'll get more aware of the feeling of peeing then getting wet or getting dirty.  So to this date, she doesn't have problem sitting down on the potty when we tell her to and she has the need to go.  She would also do this on her own from time to time... not most of the time though.

Having reflected on all these, I guess she's not doing so bad... but she can definitely still improve and by golly, I hope soon!

Anyways, funny thing the other day is that she had been soooo active and wouldn't want to take even a few seconds of her precious time playing and discovering to go and sit down on her potty.  One time she told me she need to poo so I sat her down but after a couple of minutes trying to concentrate, she decided she doesn't need this and want to continue playing.  So off she went.

At night, before dinner, she again told me she needs to poo so I sat her again on her potty and patiently "help" her concentrate.  After a good while, she decided again to stand up and play with her toy push cart and scatter her toys around the house instead of doing her needful business.  I don't like forcing anything to anyone so I let her be while I prepare dinner. 

Just before dinner is served, I heard hubby ask the little one if by any chance she pooed and didn't notice. LSP started yelling no-no-no-NO! In a quick defense.  Hubby asked her again if she was sure... or perhaps it was just gases because it sure smell like it.  LSP answered with the same defensive tone no-no-no-NO!

I was laughing on my own hearing hubby and LSP's conversation.

Mother's instinct said there's some monkey business going on so I put down the wooden spoon and went to see LSP and just by a quick look from a far, I already see something protruding her behind.  I chuckled.  I asked her if she want to sit down the potty or the toilet bowl.  As expected, I got a resounding no-no-no-NO! Then I said to come with me so we can clean her up.  She ran for her dear life.  I caught her and naturally, she tried to wiggle away from mami.  It suddenly occurred to me to tell her that if we don't clean her behind, ants will surely go up there and eat the nasty thing between her behind and her leggings. 

I know.  What a thought.  Sometimes a mother can get desperate and think and say things like this.  But this sure caught LSP's attention and kept her quiet with a thoughtful-look in her face and definitely made her cooperate and confess that she DID the serious business.

Why do we call it serious business by the way?  Because...

It's each one's business, y'all and when ya hafta do this, you gotta be serious!

I hope I didn't cause her trauma because of what  I told her about the ants?

Potty Training - Updates after a month since we first tried potty.

Let's talk about potty progress.  In my previous post back in April 19, I mentioned that Little Spanish Pinay has started getting comfortable with the toilet bowl.  There was two instances when she pooed and pee'd in the bathroom.  Fast forward to now, this going to the bathroom every morning has become a regular.  Every morning, I'd let her sit in the toilet bowl and she'd happily agree.  She would pee without fail and she would poo every 2 days.  For the rest of the day, since I can't watch her every minute, I can't read her signs and let her go to the bathroom to do her thing...  and as I've mentioned already from the other post, we're not in a hurry for her to be potty trained but it doesn't hurt to start as early as now even if it's just every morning.  Sometimes it does take a while for her to do her things but what's important for now is that she's comfortable at the idea that she's there seated on the toilet bowl.

see how comfortable she is?

and when she finally able to do what she has to do? She gets all happy and proud.

Early Attempts for Potty Training

I've read some articles about infant potty training and while I believe in it, it's something that is a bit far-fetched for me considering that I have a full time work and can't attend to Little Spanish Pinay every minute of the day to watch her signs.  Not to mention that I love the idea and I find it pretty amazing.  Once again it shows how babies at their very young age shows that they are capable of communicating.

We are not really potty training LSP now but we've been doing things that we believe can help her to be potty trained as early as she can.  One is when we decided to use cloth diapers.  They said that using cloth diapers help babies potty train as babies or toddlers gets more aware of the wetness and discomfort and gets more motivated to use the bathroom.  We're doing mix though - i.e. we still use disposable diapers for going outside and at night.  Between work, household chores, taking care of LSP and convenience when we are not home, we can't just completely abandon disposable diapers no matter how much we'd want to. 

Anyways, another thing is that lately, since weather is getting nicer, LSP goes around the house diaperless.  That is right.  She'd have accidents, naturally but that's OK.  We just clean up and period.  one reason we do that is because I'd like her to feel free and be more comfortable (breeze in the butt, baby!) around the house.  This also helps her be more aware of the idea that she's urinating.  She gets more aware of how she'd feel prior to the act, then she'd see what's actually happening and what is done after that.  I'd also try to observe her behavior and try to understand whatever signs she may have when she's about to go.  And then I'd try to ask her if she wants to go and then we'll go to the bathroom and then I'd make a wisssss wisss sound.  To my surprise, once, she did go.  I was so happy and kept congratulating LSP.  She was happy and seemed to be proud too.  She doesn't go everytime I do that but there are a few times that she actually did go.  Somteimes I notice her looking down there and trying to touch it.  So I take it as a sign.  Once she also kind of suddenly shrugged like she felt some goosebumps and I took it as a sign too.  Needless to say, everytime I see her doing something out of the normal, I try to take it as a sign and send her to the bathroom. 

There was even one time that she pooed.  It has been 2 days since the last time she pooed and while we were playing I notice her suddenly became quiet.  I scooped her up and proceeded to the bathroom.  I put her in a squatting position while I carry her and made uhhhhhhm-uhm sound and what do you know, she pooed!

Today is the biggest improvement.  All through the night, she didn't pee.  Whe she woke up in the morning, after our morning kisses and tickles, I removed her diaper and noticed that it wasn't wet at all.  And she slept for 11 hours!  So I took her to the bathroom and made wisssss wissssss sound and without waiting too much, she pee'ed happily.  And quite an amount, by the way!

It's just too bad that I can't really be 100% with her to monitor her signs so we can go to the bathroom.  As little as she is, I know she does little sign to tell mami that she needs to go or poo and all I need is to religously follow that sign for her to become more confident with herself in terms of telling me when she needs the bathroom.  So while I work, we have accidents at home and it's really no biggie.  All my siblings and I never used diapers neither and accidents at home with babies is just normal.  At the same time, we're not really in a hurry for her to be potty trained.  We just do what we can little by little. 

And what I like the most is that LSP seems to be enjoying this diaper-less thing.  You should see her squeal while walking and playing around the house.  The sweetest thing.

And precisely just now, after waking up from her nap, we went to the bathroom again and she pee'd and poo'ed.  This is looking good.