3 Months of Fall Meals: My Menu Plan

Well, I did some revising of my own menu plan for fall as I wrote about my menu planning process, and so I thought I would share the result with you all: 3 weeks of very family friendly, not too time consuming meals.  Each recipe makes about 5 servings: one each for me and my husband for dinner and lunch the next day, plus a half serving each for the kids. (Ender still doesn’t really count. :D) Anyway, if you’re interested in not having to plan dinner for the next three weeks, here you go! Shopping lists are included in the menu file, but don’t include basics like chicken, rice, flour, etc., so you may want to check that your idea of kitchen staples matches mine. :D

Fall 3 Week Rotation Menu

Fall Recipes for 3 Weeks

Week 1:

Friday – Canadian Bacon Pizza, salad, cheesy bread
Saturday – leftovers/eat out
Sunday – Salmon, rice, veggie
Monday – Chicken Squash Corn Chowder (in the crock pot), baguettes
Tuesday – Mongolian Beef, rice
Wednesday – Bucatini Al’Amatriciana, veggie
Thursday – Oven Fajitas

Week 2:

Friday – Canadian Bacon & Apple Pizza, salad, cheesy bread
Saturday – leftovers/eat out
Sunday – Calzones (no recipe for this one, as the instructions are a little complex to rewrite; the recipe is found in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, which every cook should own!)
Monday – Autumn Minestrone Soup (in the crock pot), baguettes
Tuesday – Almond Chicken Stirfry, rice
Wednesday – Tuscan Garlic Chicken, veggie
Thursday – Tostadas, corn, salsa & chips

Week 3:

Friday – Philly Steak Pizza, salad, cheesy bread
Saturday – leftovers/eat out
Sunday – Chicken Enchiladas, salad
Monday – Cheesy Vegetable Chowder (in the crock pot), baguettes
Tuesday – Beef and Cashew Stirfry, rice
Wednesday – Paprika Chicken Stroganoff, veggie
Thursday – Black Bean Soup, rice, salad

Parenting Book Review: Diaper-Free Before 3

So I never got around to finishing this post about how I potty-trained Noah, but now that Ender’s potty training has begun, I’m ready to approach the subject again. I checked out Early Start Potty Training again from the library to refresh my memory, and I saw this book–Diaper Free Before 3 by Jill M Lekovic, MD–on the shelf next to it. Boy, am I glad I did! I’ve finally found a potty-training book that embodies my personal philosophy of the process.

The philosophy behind Diaper-Free Before 3 is simple: earlier potty-training means fewer diapers. Fewer diapers are better for the environment and mean greater freedom for both the parent and the child. I personally have also found that it is easier to potty train at a younger age because 1) your child is less independent and more willing to respond to direction, and 2) you are more patient because you expect slower progress with a younger child.

Note that I said it’s easier, not that it’s faster. It took me 6 months to train Georgie at age 2.5, and it took me 6 months to train Noah at age 1.5. However, Georgie’s 6 month potty training was filled with yelling, bribery, and tantrums on both of our parts, and Noah’s was a gradual, pleasant, laid-back experience. I know which way I’d rather spend 6 months.

So what is the Diaper-Free Before 3 method of potty training? You’ll have to read the book for the long version, but here’s my cheat sheet:

1. Learning to sit on the potty – Starting as early as 6 months, set aside 10 minutes a day to practice sitting on the potty. After a meal or before or after naptime are the best times to ensure your child will have some success. Bring a book and comfort your child as he gets used to sitting on the toilet. If something ends up in the potty, great, deal with that, but otherwise just focus on the routine of using the potty once per day.
2. Increasing potty opportunities for success – Once the child is willing to sit on the potty when asked, increase the your 10 minute potty sessions. I like to introduce a new one every week or so, again after a meal or before or after a naptime. Soon your child will be a pro at the routine of sitting, and even be successful some of the time. Use the phrase, “It’s time to go use the potty” rather than asking your child, “Do you want/need to use the potty?” They don’t know, and the default answer to a parent question is often “No!” Just make it part of your day, like eating lunch or brushing teeth. However, there’s no need to force your child to sit for long periods, just like you shouldn’t force your child to eat if they don’t want to. Just go and try, then finish and be done when they are done.
3. Training sessions – When your child makes the connection between the potty and what goes in it and is having lots of potty trips each day, add a period in your day when you allow your child to wear training underwear or go naked. (No pull-ups, please!) This will allow your child to realize when they are going in their diaper and hopefully begin to make the association that they need to use the bathroom.
4. Full time underwear – After your child understands the process and has few accidents per day, transition to full-daytime underwear!

Notice there are no bribes, rewards, or elaborate systems. This is what I love about this system. No coercion, just a normal expectation that they will learn eventually. It’s a slow process, but because you start early, it’s much less stressful because you have all the time in the world.

I also love Dr. Lekovic’s relaxed tone. She takes a very middle of the road approach to many parenting debates (cloth diapers vs disposable, early potty training vs readiness) which makes her a delightfully refreshing voice. I love how she bases her opinions and evidence rather than philosophies and guesses.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to potty train a child. It doesn’t matter if your child is older than 6 months; just start now. I started with Ender a few weeks ago (14 months old). At first, he was terrified of sitting on the potty, but he’s calmed down now and even had a few successes. And he loves washing his hands! I’m excited to see where this adventure takes us.

What are your favorite potty training tips and tricks? What parenting books I should read next?

How to Plan Meals for Three Months in Three Hours: Hour Three

So at the end of hour two, you should have your meal plan completed, and you could be finished. However, I have found that taking the process one step further makes a big difference. During hour three, you gather all the materials you need to make actually preparing your meals easier, namely recipes and shopping lists.

Hour Three: Creating a Seasonal Recipe Book

If a lot of your recipes come from online sources, it’s simple and quick to create a recipe book of all your meals for the season. Even if they come from traditional cook books that you keep handy, I suggest copying all the recipes for the season into one place. That way when dinner comes around, you can simply pull it out and go. I even keep a bookmark in mine so I know exactly where I am. Every second counts, right? (Only if you are obsessive like me. :D ) Plus if your recipes are all in one place, your husband can even pull off dinner if you’re sick. I can’t tell you how many times I had to scrounge through pinterest half delirious with cold medicine before I figured this out.

Here’s how to create a personalized recipe book as quickly as possible:

1. Buy your materials – I like to use a 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 binder, because it’s more compact than the traditional full page binder size and therefore takes less counter space. It’s really easy to scale your recipes to print on half a page (more on that in a minute). Grab some half size page protectors, and maybe some tabs and you’re ready to go. You’ll also need a word processing program and a printer that’s not running out of ink. :D
2. Create a title page and table of contents (Optional) – Open up a new document in your favorite word processing program. Type “Fall Recipes” (or whatever clever title you come up with) on the first page and maybe throw a cute piece of clip art in there. On the next page, add a table of contents. Most word processing programs can auto-generate one. In the most current version of Word, it’s under References >> Table of Contents. As long as you put the title of each recipe in the “Header 1” style, it will automatically add it to your table on contents. Now’s a good time to make sure your document has page numbers too.
3. Gather your recipes – Run through your menu and type each recipe onto a new page of the document. Copy and paste from the internet, type it out of your cookbook, or even take a picture–if your camera is high enough resolution that you can read the recipe. You can be as lazy or as fussy as you want with formatting, but the point is to get them in one place and in the order you are going to make them. Make sure to choose a heading format for the title if you want your table on contents to auto-generate.
4. Size up the fonts and print 2-to-a-page – This last step is the real trick: make sure each recipe fills as much of the page as possible. Size up the font on each page until the page is just filled, but not flowing over to the next page. Then make sure your table of contents is up to date–you may need to hit a refresh option to see all the recipes. Then print your recipe book, but select the option to print 2 pages on every page. (Trust me, it’s in there somewhere.) Ta Da! Your recipes now take half a page each.
5. Fold in half, put in page protectors, and start cooking – Yup, if you fold the page in half, it fits perfectly in a half size page protector. Congrats on making your own cook book.

Hour Three: Pre-Writing Your Shopping Lists

Ah, but there’s one more quick trick. Now that you have all your recipes in a binder, you can easily pre-write your shopping list. Pre-writing your list means that it takes a lot less time to write your list each week, which means you can be out the door faster!

For each meal, write the ingredients in the shopping list column of the meal plan sheet. Leave out any pantry staples that you always have on hand (like flour, salt, and milk); list just the specialty ingredients. I leave off chicken and ground beef, and common vegetables too, since I always have those on hand. Use your judgement as to what to put on.

And that’s it. I’m currently going through the process of revamping my fall meal plan. Anyone interested in seeing my step-by-step?

How to Plan Meals for Three Months in Three Hours: Hour Two

All right, now that you’ve finished hour one, I’m sure you’re ready for hour two of your meal planning adventure! By the way, I never do all three hours at once, since that would lead to total burnout. I usually break it up over the three weeks before the season I want to start using the menu plan, but even spacing it out over a few days would help.

Hour Two: Making the Plan

This is where you get down to the nuts and bolts of making your meal plan. Narrow your brainstorming ideas down to the final 15 (or 21 with no pizza night or leftovers night) and start slotting them into your calendar. Here’s a blank copy of my seasonal menu plan to get you started. Tips on how to organize the meals into a plan below.

Blank Seasonal Menu Plan

1. Shopping Day – You’ll notice my weeks begin with Friday rather than Monday or Sunday. That’s because Friday is my shopping day. This way, I can see the whole week’s worth of meals I need to shop for at a glance. Feel free to rotate the days so that it’s organized by your shopping habits.
2. Groups of 3 – I like to organize my meals into groups of three that are similar by some theme (again–ethnicity, meat, grain, cooking method, type of meal, etc.). If you used themed grids to come up with your meal ideas, this will be easy! Then you can simply pick a day for each group: Monday is Mexican day, Tuesday is salad day, Wednesday we grill.
3. Keep your schedule in mind – When you’ve got a particularly busy night weeknight, make sure you slot in something simple that night, or you’ll end up at Subway again. If you’ve grouped your meals by type, put the crockpot or 15 minute meals on this night! And conversely, don’t put something that needs time to rise or marinate on a day when you have a busy morning.
4. Check for variety – To keep things from feeling boring or routine, you need to make sure each week has a good variety of meals in it. After I’ve initially placed all my meals, I go through the list checking for meals that are too similar next to each other. I avoid having the same meat or grain two nights in a row–one can only take so much rice. I make an exception for chicken, but three times in a row is still my absolute limit. Juggle things around until you’ve achieved a good balance between weeks.
5. Side dishes – Evaluate each meal for balance. If your main dish doesn’t include enough vegetables, note in the side dish column that you need to prepare a veggie with it. You can either pick something that goes well, or just leave it as “veggie” so you can take advantage of what’s on sale or in your CSA box. You should also note if you need to prep rice, rolls, or other side dishes.

And your plan is finished! Doesn’t it feel good to know you won’t have to think about dinner all season long?

We’ll be dealing with the “shopping list” column during hour 3, next Wednesday!

How to Plan Meals for Three Months in Three Hours: Hour One

I hate meal planning. Anyone who knows me will be baffled by this statement since I am notorious for my hyper-organized meal schedules. But the reason I made all my crazy spreadsheets was that after college and my first few years of marriage, I got really tired of thinking about what to eat. It stressed me out and I never knew what to put on the menu–I am not the kind of person who always has a random recipe I’m dying to try.

After trying a lot of different techniques, I finally settled on a system that works for me: I plan out my meals for an entire season at once. I pick out three weeks worth of meals, then I repeat those three weeks 3-4 times until the next season arrives, when I’ll make the next season’s list.

How do you go about planning an entire season of meals at once? Well, it takes about three hours. Seems like a lot, but remember, you’ll be saving time in the long run when you don’t have to spend 15 minutes wracking your brain each night for what to cook.

Hour One: Brainstorming

Before I get down to trying to lay out a schedule, I do some serious brainstorming to come up with meal ideas. Pull out lots of scratch paper and write down whatever comes to mind when thinking about the season you’re planning for (spring, summer, fall, winter). Here are a few exercises I pull out to get my meal planning mind going:

1. What’s broken? – What don’t you like about your current system of meals? Too much pasta? Too little veggies? Too much cooking time on busy nights? Too much Chinese take-out? Write down your frustrations so you can fix them. Also keep in mind the schedule for the upcoming season. If the kids have sports practice on certain nights, write that down so you can plan something simple or a crockpot meal you can prep ahead of time.
2. Stretch goals – Every season, I try to set a nutritional goal for our family. Eating more salad, trying out different kinds of beans, consuming less meat, and eating more fish are all goals I’ve used in the past. Pick one to work on this time around. It’s much easier to work on one thing rather than the general goal of “eat healthier.”
3. Seasonal produce – I print out a list like this one of the produce that is available in the season I’m planning for. Back when I was planning meals weekly, I would plan around produce sales to reduce my grocery bills. Planning around seasonal produce accomplishes the same thing without the weekly hassle. If you have a garden, think of what produce will be ripening in it.
4. Imagine you’re eating out – To make it easier to stay home than to eat out, I will imagine the kinds of foods I would order if I went out to eat. Find a recipe to recreate the dish at home and bam! you can satisfy your cravings and stay at home. Pull out the menus from a few of your favorite restaurants for inspiration.
5. Family favorites – If you’re like me, winter makes you think of hearty soups and stews, while summer makes you think salads and grilling. Write down any meals that are “must have” favorites for the season.
6. Thematic grids – When coming up with more meals to fill in the gaps, I use a tic-tac-toe grid to generate ideas. I write one set of “themes” along the columns and one along the rows. For example, I might write “chicken, beef, fish” along the columns and “Asian, Mexican, Italian” along the rows. Then I try to come up with a meal that combines both the row idea and the column idea for each box. Where “chicken” and “Mexican” intersect, I’d write my favorite Mexican meal with chicken in it–chicken enchiladas. For “beef” and “Asian,” I’d write beef and broccoli. If you can’t come up with something to fill in a slot, poke around a favorite recipe site and find something new! Some themes you might use to help generate ideas:

• Meats: chicken, beef, pork, fish, meatless
• Ethnic cuisines: Asian, Mexican, Italian, American, Indian
• Grains/starches: pasta, rice, potatoes, tortillas, bread
• Cooking methods: slow cooker, oven, one pot stovetop, grill, salad, stir fry, soup

For three weeks worth of meals, you’ll need about 21 different meal ideas. If that sounds like too much, you can do what I do: throw in a Friday (homemade) pizza night and a Saturday leftovers/eating out night. That knocks out two days and now you only need 15 meal ideas, which is much less scary. Coming up (soon?): hours two and three.

Busby Family Rules

Drafted these tonight for Family Home Evening. My kids were so excited to have input on the rules, and to get the rules written down so they know what they are! Georgie has been going nuts because he feels like he never knows when he’s going to get in trouble, even though it seems obvious to me. But I guess not to him. Anyway, there are two sets, general rules and the table rules.

Busby Table Rules
1. No robots (or toys) at the table! – Robots in this context means anything with a screen that turns you into a robot instead of a real, present human being.
2. Try one happy bite of everything before you leave the table. – You don’t have to swallow if you don’t want to, but everyone tastes everything. Everyone also must have everything on their plate.
3. If you want seconds, eat your firsts (all of them). – If you want seconds of a favorite food, you have to eat your veggies. But otherwise, you can choose to eat however much you want to. Or not at all. But no short order cooking here.
4. No crazy noises at the table. – A necessary rule in a family of boys.
5. No interrupting, no talking with your mouth full of food. – We’re working on the basics of conversation here.
6. Leave the table with your plate (or to go potty). – Even a two-year-old can clear his dishes. It’s not that hard.

Busby Rules of Conduct
1. If someone is going to be hurt or something is going to be broken, tell Mom or Dad.
2. Otherwise, use nice words and voices to solve your own problems. – Yup, I don’t make my kids share.
3. If you try two solutions that don’t work, you can come ask Mom or Dad for help. – I will think of ideas for you, or give suggestions, but I will not solve your problem.
4. No screaming at anyone (especially parents at kids!). – This one is especially for me. Guilty, 100%. My kids get to send me to time out for this.
5. No hitting ever. – Rough housing is okay though.
6. Everyone does their chores. – I tried to add “with a smile,” but my hubby said that was pushing it.
7. Everyone gets an opinion, but Mom and Dad get final say. – I want my kids to know I will listen to their complaints about the rules and consider them politely.
8. Love each other. – This covers pretty much everything else, right?
9. Laugh. – About good times, about horrible times, always.

What are your family rules? Anything important we missed?

5 Ways to Adapt Grown-up Board Games for Children

So my oldest son is currently obsessed with board games. And not the little kid ones like Candy Land that I’ve let the kids tear up for years. No, he’s facinated by our “grown-up” board games, with the millions of cards and figurines. And why wouldn’t he be? They’re colorful, have lots of small, interesting pieces, and have exciting themes like trains and conquering the world. How can lame games featuring candy and slides stand up to that? Georgie is always begging to play Ticket To Ride or Dominion. The one thing he asked Santa for this year was Monopoly.

The problem is that he’s five. Georgie might, on a good day, be able to handle the mechanics of Monopoly but the strategy of it is beyond him. And clearly letting anyone under the age of 13 touch Dominion would result in disaster.

Or would it? As a result of enormous five-year-old pressure, I’ve embarked on a quest of adapting some of our exciting, grown-up games for little kid playability. And granted, I wouldn’t hand over these games to a kid who is still in love with chewing cards or playing 52 card pick-up. But I’ve picked up a few strategies along the way that have actually made things fun.

1. Reduce options – Many adult board games, like Ticket To Ride and Alhambra, rely on allowing you to draw either one of the five face up cards or from the draw pile. Cut the number down to reduce the time it takes your child to pick his/her cards. Similarly, in games where you are working towards multiple goals, like the four diseases in Pandemic or the four treasures in Tobago, try cutting the number down by half. Your kids will be able to focus better and be more strategic if there are fewer things to compare.
   
2. Remove elements – The fun part of many modern board games is trying to track multiple strategic elements at once. For example, in 7 Wonders, there are at least 7 different ways to earn points to win the game. You might try to remove some options until your child gets the hang of a few. For example, getting rid of the blue and green cards in 7 Wonders doesn’t change game play too much, and greatly simplifies the goals. When playing Alhambra, you might choose to ignore the different colors of money or the requirement that your city be walkable until your child gets a hang of the scoring system. Similarly, you could ignore missions in Ticket To Ride and just go for straight points and the longest route.
3. Play “open-face” – In games with lots of cards, tokens, and other collectables, it’s difficult for your child to even hold all their cards, much less understand what they are all doing. In this case, it can be helpful to have everyone play at least one game with their cards “open” on the table. Playing with cards visible allows your child to observe the choices you make, see card organization in action, and understand your strategy. Playmats can also be helpful for this purpose. We love to use this one when we play Bohnanza. You can find playmats for other card games by searching on BoardGameGeek.
4. Make it co-operative – When a game is truly too challenging for a kid to understand, get together and play as a team. Make up a co-operative goal: for Ticket To Ride, you could pick a mission card and work together to get there. The great thing is, kids don’t care if there isn’t a failure condition. Just pick a short goal in the game and achieve it! My boys also like to play against a “computer” or “bad guy,” especially in games like BANG where the theme lends well to it. Regular co-op games like Pandemic also lend well to you just telling the kids what to do.
5. Add a time limit – Because, frankly, you can only Ticket To Ride with a five-year-old so many times before you go nuts. Before you start, let your child know the limits: “This time, whoever gets the most points in 15 minutes wins!” This might be helped by skipping ahead slightly in gameplay by dealing out more starting cards (Ticket To Ride) or starting at a higher scoring level (Alhambra).

What are your family’s favorite board games? Does your child ever want to play games above their skill level and what do you do about it?

The Perpetual Salad Initiative

Okay, I have a confession to make.

I have prosaic American tastebuds.

I am thoroughly embarrassed about this. I don’t like quinoa or kale or tofu. Eating Thai or Indian food or sushi usually makes me throw up. I love the idea of being a food sophisticate, but I am so not. I like things like sloppy joes and tuna noodles and hamburgers, for heaven’s sake. Cole slaw is fantastic, and so is fried chicken.

Reading the internet, you’d think you couldn’t be healthy unless you like to eat vegetables with unpronounceable names and stop eating meat or carbs or both. Well, I am out to prove people wrong. I have no desire to change my cultural palate, but that doesn’t mean I can’t shift it a little to the healthy side without massacring it. I have a few rules I follow to create a healthy American cuisine:

1. Limit cheese-heavy and cream-based sauce meals to once a week. They are foundational in American foods, so enjoy them by limiting them.
2. Cook with real ingredients and make things yourself when possible. If you only eat homemade donuts, you’ll eat a lot less doughnuts.
3. Throw extra vegetables in everything, but don’t disguise them. I personally think it’s silly to hide your vegetables in cake, bread, smoothies, etc. All that does is create a habit of eating cake/bread/smoothies, which may not always have vegetables in them. Get the vegetables out where you can see them and put them there in boatloads. Yes, this means my version of chili has carrots, celery, corn, garlic, onions, and peppers.
4. Have a side salad with dinner every day.

It’s this last item that I’m working on. As you might guess by my taste preferences, I’m not so much into salad. Usually when I buy a bag of greens, half of it rots in my fridge. This year, I hope to get my family to be more consistent about eating salad. Well, mostly my husband and I, as my children, thanks to excellent brainwashing training, both love to eat salad.

The other thing that keeps me from eating more salad—besides its nasty chlorophyll-ly taste—is the effort it takes to make the thing. Salads come in second only to sandwiches in their time-to-make to tastiness ratio. (Does that make sense? It takes way too long to make them given the pitiful result.)

Thus I am beginning the Perpetual Salad Initiative. The idea is to add a few new ingredients each day to transform the salad into something new. Hopefully this will make salad more interesting and keep us from getting bored of eating it. Ready to see the plan? All right, then.

Day 1: Caesar salad – Begin with romaine lettuce and Parmesan cheese. Serve with croutons and Caesar dressing.
Day 2: Spinach w/fruit salad – Add spinach, craisins or berries, and walnuts or almonds. Serve with poppy seed dressing.
Day 3: Garden salad – Add a lettuce mix (spring greens, 7 lettuces, etc.), and two or more vegetables such as cucumbers, onions, mushrooms, and olives. Serve with Thousand Island dressing.
Day 4: Cobb salad – Add more romaine lettuce, as well as either tomatoes or avocado, chicken, and grated cheese. Serve with a vinaigrette.
Day 5: Chef salad – Add iceberg salad mix, chopped hard boiled eggs, and ham. Serve with croutons and ranch.
Day 6: Dump it and start over!

Any of your favorite salad types that I missed? What are your tips for making and eating salad? I could definitely use some help.

New Year, New Beginning

I’m resurrecting this blog for New Year’s. Yes, cliche, but there you have it. I need to start writing more, and this is the place that feels natural to do it. Expect to be hearing more from me in the future.

I’m also scrapping my attempt to make this a parenting-only blog. It was boring to write, and I have so much more to talk about than that. So, as you can see reflected in the About page, I’m now going to write about whatever I want to, mostly with the hope of culling material for some personal essay writing.

And now without further ado, my New Year’s resolutions. Please share yours with me! Peer pressure is a great way to get things done.

Physical:

• Run a half marathon. This half-marathon. That I’ve already paid for, so no backing out. Train for this by running 3 days a week, strength training 2 days a week, and yoga once a week. Follow my progress on Runkeeper.
• Begin the Perpetual Salad Initiative. (More on that later.)

Spiritual:

• Read daily from the Old Testament before bed. I’ve tried for years to find another time to read scriptures, but nothing ever turns out to be a consistent cue, so back to bedtime it is. I’m trying to get in bed earlier and reward myself with other reading so I won’t be so tired when I do it.
• Read 10 other books on Old Testament topics to keep it interesting. Follow my progress on Goodreads.
• Attend the temple once a month. Get a babysitter.

Mental:

• Read 10 classics. I’m trying to stick with the ancient history period so these will tie in with the Old Testament, but if I get bored I may throw in some Victorian stuff. Follow my progress on Goodreads.
• Read 10 works of creative non-fiction. Gotta start reading more of what I want to write. Follow my progress on Goodreads.
  
• Blog twice a week.
• Complete 5 personal essay projects this year. Pull material from blog writing and journal writing.

Relational

• Plan a monthly family activity.
• Go on a date monthly by actually planning ahead and getting a babysitter. (Why is that the hardest part?)
• Continue to work on not yelling at the kids. :D

Looks like a lot, I know. I always get too ambitious. But best to aim high, right?

Potty Training the Slow Way: Faster is Not Always Better

I started this post in April when I starting potty-training Sailor, but I’ve been hesitant to post it until we met with success. How could I talk about this stuff if I didn’t know how it would end? This week, Sailor has been almost 100% diaper free with few accidents, and I ‘m ready to declare success. So without further ado, here’s a little mini-series on my new thoughts on potty-training.

I have to admit, when I was potty training Monkey, I was totally caught up in all the “potty train your child in a week/day/hour” methods that are out there.  I loved the idea that I could just be done and not deal with all the messes.  Yuck.

These methods did not work for us for two reasons:

1. I didn’t have the patience to focus exclusively on potty training for any amount of time.  Most of “instant” methods I read about required a lot of time dedication from the parent. When I tried it, I found that all I could do if I wanted the method to work was watch my child for accidents and babble about the potty. Any distraction led to failures. I felt bored and trapped, and it made me mad and impatient.  Ditto for Monkey. Even a day was too much to ask; we have better things to do.
2. I had a hard time understanding the real challenge of potty training is not getting them to go on demand, but getting them to understand when they need to go.  Monkey had the first part down in about 30 minutes; knowing when to go took six months or more.  It was baffling to me why he couldn’t put two and two together.  I didn’t help that Monkey is so naturally bright–I expected him to comprehend this as quickly as he had picked up reading. He didn’t.

After all the yelling and crying associated with Monkey’s extended potty-training period (6 months, a year if you count our first few attempts), I was ready to find something else for training Sailor.  I did not want to go through it again, and more importantly, I didn’t want to put my cute little Sailor through it.  In a whim of random library trawling (whoever coordinated our library so that the parenting section of non-fiction lies next to the kids area was a genius), I picked up a couple of books on potty training from the library including Early-Start Potty Training. It’s a very interesting book, mostly focusing on infant elimination control, the idea of potty training babies starting at 2-4 months. (If you thought babies had no bladder control, consider how quickly your child stops peeing during diaper changes. It only takes a few months before your baby learns that this gets a very negative reaction and they have the control to avoid it.)

I don’t know if I’m quite hardcore enough to take on potty training an infant, but their section on training 18-to-24-month-olds was exactly what I was looking for. A few things I liked about it:

1. Less time consuming – Instead of potty-training suddenly occupying your whole existence, you start extremely gradually and move up, enfolding it into your daily routine. If you’re doing fast potty training, you’re cumulatively taking hours out of your child’s day for this rather boring activity.  After the first novelty wore off, I’d be put out about it, wouldn’t you? Slow potty training solves this by introducing potty time slowly, so the burden is gradually placed on your child.
2. More patience – Maybe it’s just me, but it was so much easier for me to be patient with an 18-month-old than a 2.5 year old. I didn’t expect him to understand and I felt fine taking it slow since he had so much more time before he hit the age where it was socially unacceptable for him to be in diapers. I treated it like an interesting experiment to see if he could learn, not expecting any results at all, just establishing habits.
3. Conditioning, not logic – Frankly when we potty-trained Monkey, there was a lot of arguing and reasoning, bribing and rewarding. But in the end, the reflexes involved are a mostly involuntary system and logic isn’t very helpful. Young toddlers are better programmed to learn by imitation and conditioning than 2 and 3 year olds. Early-Start Potty Training frequently uses the analogy of house breaking a puppy versus housebreaking a fully-grown dog: the dog will understand what you want better but be less able to comply because of habit, whereas the puppy won’t understand but is easier to condition. (I take this on faith, since I’ve never had a dog.)
4. Balance between child-led and parent-directed – Finally, slow potty training isn’t as in-your-face, “you will do this” as some of the fast potty training methods, but it’s not as wishy-washy as the “let your child tell you when it’s time” methods that will have your child still in diapers at age 4.  It’s definitely parent directed, but the demands upon the child are incremental and therefore a lot less onerous and less likely to draw resistance fire from your toddler.

One thing you must have to accept before you go the slow potty training way: there will be accidents, there will be mess, but it won’t be as bad as you think. Since reading Early-Start Potty Training, I’m beginning to think that all of our modern potty training woes stem from our desire to avoid mess. We start at a later age, hoping they will comprehend quicker and reduce mess. We invented “training pants” which are basically still diapers–they work great to avoid mess, but they eliminate the natural consequences that speed potty learning.

Next week: the steps I modified from Early-Start Potty Training to form my new go-to potty training plan.