Over seven months in the making! Gabe went poop and pee on the potty! Kristie and I are so proud of our little man Gabe! Gabe has achieved so much and Kristie and I are excited to be on the journey with him! It is difficult to describe the how much pride, joy, and happiness Kristie and I feel when Gabe reaches a milestone. I have previously discussed the experience we had with Gabe learning to walk and how influential Lottie was. With the potty, Lottie is constantly encouraging Gabe to go potty with her, sometimes she will stand outside the door and shout, “Gabe come!” and after he tries to go, she says "Good try, Gabey!" Lottie has been so helpful with potty training Gabe. When he went on the potty, Lottie yelled "I'm so proud of you, Gabey! I go poopy too!" and then she sat on her potty next to him in solidarity. It was so funny and adorable! Kristie and I knew we didn’t want Gabe to feel pressure to sit on the potty.
When we started potty training Lottie, Kristie and I had Gabe sit on the potty with Lottie and that did not go over well. Gabe started to want to sit on the potty because Lottie was encouraging him. Gabe does not like to forced to do anything and it seems like all of our children enjoy challenging Kristie and I on just about everything. Gabe requires us to be better parents, he is extremely independent while also requiring a significant amount of attention. This makes Kristie and I get creative with getting Gabe to things he doesn’t want to do. One method that we have had remarkable success with is “first this” “then that.” For example, to get Gabe to eat his dinner we will say, “Gabe, first chicken nuggets then bath.” This technique has worked well for us and I recommend trying and sticking with it for a few months. Yes, I said months and I mean it. It is going to take a significant amount of time and patience for use to teach our children! It took a while for Gabe to consistently understand the deals of the contract, but now we can usually get him to accomplish a task he doesn’t want to do if the reward it sweet enough. My heart is filled with joy knowing that Gabe will accomplish things in his own time. We can make things easier for ourselves as parents if we approach learning opportunities (learning to use the potty) with the mentality of we might not accomplish this task today, but we know we will someday. It is important to enjoy all the experiences our children provide to us, especially the teaching opportunities. It is vital to not be discouraged when tasks are not accomplished on a timeline or there is regression in a specific task. Lottie was 20 old months and it
took her about two weeks be to 90% potty trained (we are still working on sleeping), Gabe is now three and a half and it took him seven months to use the potty for the first time. This is the timeline we experienced for these specific events, know and understand that your timeline is different and specific to you and your child. Patience and dedication are going to the key factors in your success as you navigate your journey to achieving milestones!
We have started selling t-shirts to promote Down syndrome advocacy here. The proceeds from the t-shirt sales go toward making welcome baskets for new families with a baby born with an extra chromosome!