Sometimes I am stunned by the absolutely mundane nature of my child-raising problems. Today it’s pull-ups. You see, due to the great wonders of elimination communication, my daughter has been using the toilet during the day time for ages. However, we have had no such success at night, and attempts to wake her to go to the bathroom have resulted in an irritable child, an irritable parent, and no success in the realm of night time toilet training.
As a child, I had huge difficulties getting up to use the toilet at night, mostly due to an extreme fear of monsters. I wouldn’t get out of bed at all. Now, I don’t think that this is our problem, but my daughter is a deep sleeper and I think that we’re going to have to wait this one out. Occasionally now, she does wake to use the washroom, and I rejoice.
So what’s the problem? We used cloth diapers for the majority of her babyhood, along with elimination communication. However, we’ve always used disposables at night. Cloth didn’t work – we tried many times, with no success. Her skin reacts to the chemicals in most disposables, except for the non-bleached variety. Being Canadians, we’re a smaller market, and the company that makes the lovely non-bleached pull-ups has discontinued them. Catastrophe ensues: she refuses to wear others, refuses to go to bed. She has a meltdown, I have a meltdown.
Luckily, after several hours of research, I found a company that has different non-bleached pull-ups. They’ll ship them to our home. I considered sending them flowers and chocolate to show my undying gratitude about the fact that my daughter will now be willing to sleep once again. I figure that might be a bit much, though.
The other night as my daughter and I sat with friends watching The Backyardigans on the big screen, we commented that the show rocked. I laughed. To my high school self, my life and dilemmas now would seem fairly lame. Ah, the depths to which we have descended, and the joys and difficulties that are involved in parenting a preschooler.