We have just entered the month of July and this means that there are barely two months left for thousands of children to begin their journey in school, in that of the "elderly", that in which children go without diapers.
This means that all children of two or three years who still have a diaper have to stop using it in these two remaining months, and although some do it easily, others have a little more cost. To give you a hand in the process, and above all so that you do it from the affection and without tears in between, we explain today how to help children leave the diaper while respecting their rhythms.
The diaper was our thing
The first warning is key. Before asking your son or daughter to leave the diaper you should keep in mind that it was you, the parents, who decided to put on a diaper at birth so that everything he had to do was controlled.
They are born without a diaper, and in the same way that there are cultures where they do not use them because they do not know them, or because they have no means to pay them, we do use them with our children and we accustom them to do everything there, in the diaper. How do other cultures do it? Well teaching the child how much they can do when and where everyone is doing well. In China, as we have shown on occasion, many children go with their pants open to do what they have to do on the same street.
In other places they do what is known as "elimination communication", which consists of training the baby from a very young age to associate sphincter relaxation with some sound What parents do: parents watch the baby to know when he is going to pee or poop and they associate a sound to that moment (a hiss, a hiss ...). They create that association so that over time they get the baby to wait for the sound to give free rein to their elimination needs.
By this I mean that we opt for the easy way, not to do anything special, but simply to put on diapers and change them when they are dirty, and therefore, by getting used to the diaper, we must be respectful when it comes to not getting used to them.
The damn pressure of schools
The logic says that children do things when they are prepared for them and that not everyone has the same maturation rhythm. That some do some things before and others later. Well, this premise that all schools should have clear, not very clear (because I do not believe that in any school a child who is not able to learn something to be pressed is pressed), they skip it before the child enters telling him to parents who cannot enter school with a diaper.
Why not? They are children 2 and 3 years old and it is normal that many do not have sphincter control developed. Why can't he wear a diaper? Well, that is what I always ask myself ... and the answer is what it is: because they don't have staff or resources to walk changing a child's diaper, and in some cases I have met (talking with nursery teachers), or want: "What I was missing now" is a summary of what I usually answer. And it is a pity, because many children have a really bad time and their parents do not even tell you: a summer in which they are clear that they must leave it yes or yes, and a boy or girl who, for whatever reason, says no.
Come on, I am one of those who advocates that a child should leave diapers when he feels ready to do so, and not when it seems to us or those at school that he should do so. This does not mean that we do nothing, you can always try to make the child go to the toilet to do it, but if he does not get it, if days go by and there is no progress, there is no need to continue with it. He puts on the diaper and waits for it to be ready.
When are the children ready to leave the diaper?
Controlling the sphincters is something that is learned, but that can only be learned if the child has reached a time of maturation when he is able to do so. If that moment has not arrived, you can throw yourself days, weeks and months so that he can do it where you want him to do it, and it will not be because of your insistence of so much time, but because at last the moment came when his maturation allowed him to learn it. If you had kept his diaper until then and had done it later, he would have learned the same, faster and you would have saved a lot of washing machines, a dirty and angry child and pointless arguments.
The Haizea-Llevant table says, based on a large study on the development of children, that not all children learn to walk the same day. At 13 months 50% of children walk freely, 75% do so at 14 and 95% at 16. Why? Because not everyone learns to do the same at the same time. Well, the same table tells us that at 30 months of age only 50% of children control the sphincters. That is two and a half years and is, more or less, the age of some of the children who start school in September and are now camping at home without a diaper. Come on, that of all of them, half is still not able to control it and they are there, give it to them that their parents hit you trying to teach them how to learn.
At 36 months, they are 3 years, 75% of children are able to go without a diaper, and to 42 months is when 95% of children achieve it. That's 3 and a half years and still 5% to get it. And notice, that at that age they are all in school and there they consider that everyone, absolutely everyone, has to go without a diaper. Unfortunate, right?
Luckily more and more centers take this into account and no longer pressure parents so much in this regard. They tell you something like "try it, but if you don't get it, you can come with a diaper and we'll change them here." Now we just need to continue extending this philosophy, because respect for the rhythms of learning and maturation of children should be a universal premise.
How to help them leave the diaper
As you are actually reading this, not to tell you what the schools should be like, but also to know how to help them leave the diaper, I leave you below with the tips to do it as respectfully as possible:
- No hurries: We have already said that the control of sphincters is a maturation process, so as we are the ones who try to date their maturation, we cannot hurry and get angry, scolding them or reluctantly leaking them or with bad milk.
- Accompany in personal growth: Growing up as a person is not done just by leaving the diaper. It must be one more thing, so we must allow them to mature in other ways, giving them autonomy so that they dress alone, or take off their clothes, to eat, to drink in a glass (if they use a bottle), to eat, to leave the pacifier, to shower instead of bathing, put the soap themselves , brush your teeth (although then we fine tune hygiene), etc. This helps them feel older, less babies and mature earlier.
- Talk about it: They have to understand what they are doing. Why do we want them to do it in the toilet or the potty, why you have to leave the diaper behind, explain what the pee is, what the poop is, teach them how they are, that many do not even know what the poop is, and reassure them if it makes them nervous, they have to feel that they are losing a part of themselves.
- Give freedom to choose where to do it: The toilet can be scary at the beginning, because of the depth and being a large hole that suddenly makes a noisy waterfall. It is recommended that they wear comfortable clothes that can be easily raised and lowered and that they have at their disposal a potty, a diaper and the toilet, and that they choose where to do it. Many children control perfectly and ask for a diaper to poop because it is what gives them more confidence and with what they feel safer. Then they take it off and so happy. In practice, it is the same as doing it in the toilet. Over time, you only have to change diapers for urinals or toilets.
- Take advantage of it is summer: Now it's hot, so take advantage to leave them naked at home. Going naked is how they see perfectly what they are doing and where they are doing it. Come out the pee and come out the poop. And they see that it falls to the ground. That's where we tell them that in order not to stain the floor they can do it in the toilet, as does mom and dad.
- If it's not going well, give them a break: It may happen that the days pass and you do not get any progress. Let one or two weeks go by and see that everything is still being done on top of it and not only that, but it starts to cry when it is done because it does not want to, because without pressing you, he feels obliged to get it. It is then a good time to put the diaper back on and take a break. You go back to before and you will try again later. Isn't it a step back? No, because if there has been no progress, we cannot talk about recoil.
And if in the end you don't get it?
Well, sign that you tried to do something for which not ready your son or daughter You go to school and comment. You explain their progress, their progress or that they have not even advanced and if necessary you tell them that you do not care, that you know that they are better off not having to change diapers, but that you are not in a hurry and that you do not want them there press to achieve it. And you look for the best solution: "I bring you diapers, I bring you clothes? You will change it right away, right? We are going to continue working at home, but you have to be patient." In the best case they will understand and add to your opinion. It is, in fact, what should happen. In the worst case they will be inflexible and upset, and then they will have to defend your child's interests.
Photos | iStock
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