Our Foray into Toilet Training

While I've been wanting to toilet train our toddling tot earlier rather than later (I have no interest in having a four year old in diapers), our foray into the toilet training realm began unceremoniously one afternoon when Fyo began to fight getting his diaper changed. What I mean by this, is that he would either kick nonstop or run away until I chased him down. I hate power struggles, so I said, "Fine. You don't like your diaper changed then I'll take away the diapers." After this, at home he went naked from the waist down. We then began to introduce his toilet chair into the routine as well. So he goes to the toilet when we first wake up in the morning or after naps, before bath time and so on. The first day he wasn't so sure about sitting on the toilet chair, but it wasn't long before we had some successes. A couple times he stood up and clapped, then pointed to the toilet where we poured his toilet chair's contents and waved good-bye. At one point he was so amazed by his new found ability to pee into containers that he marched right into the kitchen and peed into the soup pot too.

According the experts, there are a few reasons why it was not a good time to attempt toilet training. The first is Fyo's chronic constipation. Experts generally agree to get your child past the constipation before beginning training. Other experts, however, suggest that it might actually help your child's constipation if he regularly sits on the toilet after meals and begins to learn to relax.

The other thing is that experts generally recommend beginning toilet training when there is nothing else going on in the household, like for instance over a summer when no other activities are going on. We were two weeks away from moving, not just houses but countries, from Singapore to Bali. And, upon arrival in Bali, we would stay in a couple different places.

Now we're in Bali, in our second place of stay, and I have to say, Fyo is doing great. Plenty of my friends have told me to when in doubt, follow your intuition and respond to your child's cues even at the expense of experts. We brought his toilet chair with us (it is the green plastic five dollar number from Ikea) and in each new place it comes out of the suitcase and goes in the bathroom. He then knows where to find it. Granted, it helps immensely that we chose a place to live where even when it pouring rain, it is warm enough for Fyo to go without pants. After he wakes up in the morning, we take off his diaper and he goes without (even during his naptime and he stays dry - and I guess the day that he doesn't, well, we'll be glad we're using somebody else's bed). He does wear a diaper to his three hours of nursery school, and most the time, he wears his swim diaper (one of the reusable swim trunks kind) in the pool. We do have the old fashioned kind of cotton training pants because I do not understand the point of pull-ups disposable diapers; I want him to feel when he's wet, not have it disappear as if he had just peed in a swimming pool. When he gets more fluent in being able to tell us when he has to go, then we'll start using them.

But the biggest reason why I am so glad we continued on the path? The cost of diapers in Bali. Despite being a relatively poor country, diapers are at least one and half times more expensive than they were in Singapore and I suspect the reason is because the locals don't use them. They follow the Elimination Communication path practiced by many in India and in parts of Asia. The second biggest reason why I'm glad? The waste we save. Fyo is 18 months old. With the average boy in the US achieving fluency in toilet training at 39 months - even if it does take us the traditional ten months for Fyo to get really facile, we still save a year's worth of diapers from the world's landfills.

Some thoughts on moving onward

My husband and I have been living in Singapore for six months. We moved from LA for his job (a sound and visual design engineer working on the Universal Studios theme park going in on Sentosa, the island off of Singapore). In Los Angeles, where we gave birth at home and had an amazingly supportive group of friends I met through the Moms group through our midwives office, our parenting philosophy seemed mainstream. Breastfeeding beyond six months, co-sleeping, tuning into baby's cues and so on. In terms of our families, my family thinks our parenting is genius, while my husband's family thinks they have reason to be concerned (as demonstrated by newspaper articles pasted into emails to my husband).
In Singapore, we are out of the parenting mainstream. Most the island, I suspect parents in the way my husband's family is used to parenting (mostly formula fed, cribs, when a baby cries, instead of picking the baby up, they either rock the stroller or shake a toy in its face). In my six months here, I have met five other women who were still nursing their toddlers. All of them were expats. I think there are two of us who co-sleep.
Not that it matters. I do think people need to do what works for them. Singapore, I imagine, is like most places in that there's a spectrum of people doing everything. I have grown into parenting in that I don't need a approval that I'm doing it right. Fyo is now old enough and an absolute gem; he's the proof that whatever we're doing works (for him). That being said, I'd be lost without having my LA Mom friends and other like minded friends online and on facebook. Community is more important than ever, even if it is no longer my mom's group where we hang out with snacks and our babies on blankets. And now, having grown into parenting, I have met other Mom friends, who I adore and enjoy, and who parent totally different than I do, but who still have very similar values.
Next week, with my husband's job drawing to a close, we move onward to Vietnam. We fly into Ho Chi Minh City. We have no idea how long we'll be there, but we plan on traveling north until we find a nice beach town where Husband can catch up on his sleep. We're looking forward to Vietnam as it's a country, we've both been interested in seeing. We have no idea how long we'll be there, where we'll be going after that or when we're officially going back to the states. I have relatives who hate this and who I think consider us completely irresponsible. I don't talk to them often.
I'm a bit sad to be leaving Singapore (though, I do really hate the weather). It seems that for whatever reason, it takes six months to make good friends. Singapore is also amazingly baby friendly. Most restaurants have baby chairs (high chairs) and even wait staff who are happy to carry your child around the restaurant and show him the kitchen while you enjoy your drink. Because Singapore is so safe, I never worried about my son being kidnapped. The sidewalks and subways are stroller friendly (in most places) unlike other cities in this neck of the woods. And as everyone says, Singapore is clean.
Now that I know we're leaving in just over a week, and that we're leaving for an indefinite period of time, I am a bit overwhelmed in my mind, in terms of all that there is to do just like there is with any move (packing, purging, and so on). I also now realize that I know very little about Vietnam and have little idea of what to expect. Except our only requisite for the place we stop long enough to unpack our suitcase? Internet.