Advertisement
Advertisement
Illustration: Pearl Law

A clean breakfrom the past

When does your baby become a little boy or little girl? Is it when they first eat solid food? When they can walk? Talk? Or is it when they first go to school?

All these are important milestones. We've all got our stories and memories about our children's "first times".

My baby became a little boy when we toilet-trained him. Babies wear diapers; boys don't. Simple.

Simple? Toilet training? Yeah, right. In fact toilet training was probably the part of parenting I'd been most dreading since the first full night's sleep.

When to start the training was our choice. A bit of research suggested the right time was when he could understand and act on simple instructions. He was about two years and three months. when we started.

Even the lead-up was worrying. So many decisions and preparations had to be made. When could we put aside a whole weekend for training? Two weeks from now. Potty or toilet seat? Toilet seat. What design should be on the seat? Giraffes (they were on special offer). How many pairs of underwear do we need? Lots. What design should be on the underwear? What colours would he like? What should we do with our floor rugs? Do we have enough bleach? Some questions were obviously more important than others.

There were also new terms to be learned by both us and him. What words should we use that would be acceptable for a child? We settled on "wee-wee" and "poo-poo", which I found quite unnatural (having spent the last two-and-a-bit years consciously avoiding "baby speak" and trying to talk to him like I would an adult friend) but which he took to with little fuss, like so many other new words he absorbed every day.

And so the day arrived and, besides "wee-wee" and "poo-poo", many other words were used, such as "wet" "dry", "quickly", "almost", and "aim". The aforementioned bleach was used in abundance, as little puddles and deposits ended up on our floors. That first day, I think he went through a record 14 pairs of his new underpants, but - and this is the important bit - no diapers.

But the number of pairs of pants required each day went down. During the training there was no negativity, only encouragement; and once he got the idea, he tried really hard to make it to the toilet.

At first his no-diaper radius was quite small. We'd still put a diaper on him to go out, on the MTR or bus, or when he went to school: basically anywhere more than 15 seconds away from a toilet. But he was encouraged, and tried hard not to use the diapers.

Gradually, over the past three months or so, as his control has become better, the radius has expanded - from within our home to the area around our building, then surrounding playgrounds, transport and, finally, his school. We didn't always make it to the nearest toilet (what's with the lack of amenities in MTR stations, anyway?), but, fortunately, there were no major disasters and nothing a quick change of clothes couldn't fix.

These days our baby, who is now our little boy, wears a diaper only when he sleeps. Even then, most mornings it's dry when he gets up. This is fantastic, as it not only makes us all feel that we've achieved something worthwhile, but also saves us a fortune. One pack of diapers now seemingly lasts forever, and it's more environmentally friendly too.

I never would have thought the activity I was dreading could be so rewarding on so many levels - fiscal, environmental and emotional. Not only is the dark cloud of toilet training no longer hanging over us, but there were also some surprising moments within the mess.

I can still remember one morning early in the training, while everyone else was asleep, the two of us looking down at the contents in the bowl, his underpants still dry and clean, cheering and celebrating the achievement.

"Look. I did it!"

He was so proud. And so was I.

Anthony Burling is a stay-at-home father and accountant

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: A clean breakfrom the past
Post