OK, let’s be honest, most of the time I still pretend know everything…but I digress.

My son was extremely easy to potty train.  So easy, in fact, that by the time he was 2 years and 4 months old he was wearing big boy undies during the day and was dry most every night.

Nice, right?  Well, then came my daughter.  She was also day potty trained by two and a half.  But nighttime training was a whole different story.

Claire sleeps.  Like really sleeps during the night.  There’s no waking her.  And although this is great in so many ways, it is rotten when it comes to her ability to recognize her body’s cues during the late hours of the night.

Fast forward to February.  Claire had recently turned four and was still happily wearing her large pull-ups to bed each night.

One day we accidentally ran out of those damn absorbent pads forcing nighttime potty training upon us.

Hold me now.

At an utter loss as to what to do, I reached out and asked for help.  I sent a message to one of my high school friends who has potty trained all six of her darling children. I asked what she did with any of her reluctant nighttime potty trainers.

Here’s what she said:  For both of her difficult-to-train children, she decided to take the diapers off all together and equip the bed with those potty pads.  She said she prepared herself for a month of nightly sheet changing.  At the end of the month, both children’s bodies had adjusted to the new routine and there were no more accidents.

While mentally preparing for this month-long pee fest I found myself googling variations of the phrase, “nighttime potty training” again and again.  On one blog post a woman was asking for advice and help training her daughter.  A lady who had found success in an odd way left an obscure comment on her post.  (I wish I still had the link..)

Here’s what she said:  She successfully potty trained her daughter by (get this) increasing her daughter’s water intake during the day.  Let me say this again… She made her daughter drink more water during the day.

Crazy, right?

Well she went on to say that she realized her daughter was never really feeling that “I gotta pee really bad” sensation and therefore her body never learned which muscles were needed to “hold it”.  When that sensation happened at night, her body did not know how to respond.

Something in her comment resonated with me.

I was supermom with son and always made sure he was hydrated…But my daughter?  Not so much.

My Plan:

Starting in the morning I required Claire to drink as much water as possible, refilling her cup as many times as necessary.  I became vigilant.

After four o’clock, liquids were off limits with the exception of a small glass of water directly after dinner.

At nighttime I’d have her go to the bathroom two to three times prior to laying down, ensuring that she appropriately drained her bladder.

I’d take her to the bathroom just before I went to sleep.

I prepared for a month long ‘battle’, so to speak, by making her bed with two waterproof mattress pads and two bottom sheets and one additional waterproof pad directly under her body.

Claire, true to form, began peeing herself with regularity.  We (both Claire and I) changed her sheets and pajamas when that happened.

After two weeks, as if by some sort of miracle, Claire was dry almost every single night.

Dry.

Nightly.

Amazing.

Now I’m a believer.  Once Claire was forced into the potty dance during the day, her body began recognizing the cues at night and responded by not allowing her to relieve herself all over her sheets.

Now it’s your turn.  Send me your parenting questions and I’ll let you know what’s been effective for me.

Nighttime Potty Training

So, we’ve resorted to buying a nasty tasting nail polish for our daughter.  She just won’t stop sucking her thumb.  Don’t judge me. I tried, I mean really tried to do this using only intrinsic, and sometimes extrinsic motivation.  We’ve tried band aids on the thumbs… We’ve tried dolls, with strings attached.  We’ve tried talking to her about being a ‘big girl’.  To read more head on over!

The Placebo Effect

The conversation quickly turned to our all things kid including tantrums and negotiating.  The big question that we kept coming back to was, “How much negotiating is too much?”  If I ask my four year old to put away his socks, for the fourth time, and he tells me to wait because he’s helping his sister put on her dolly’s clothes, should I wait?  He’s got a point, he’s doing something to help out his sister.

If I say it’s time to to turn off the movie and he tells me he will when the scene is over, is that ok?

Raising a four year old is so different than raising a younger child.  Not all conversations are as black and white.  You now have to deal with a thinking, TALKING, negotiating little person.

My answer to the question, “How much negotiating is too much?” came at the turning point of BC’s tantrum phase.  My dad was in town and knew my husband and I were at a loss as to what to do with our son’s behavior.  We thought we were parenting pretty consistently.  But I have to say that having a fresh set of eyes in our house for three days, watching all our parenting moves was a true blessing.  He was able to see just where the breakdown in our strategies occurred.

One scene that he observed went something like this:

Me: BC turn off the computer.  I warned that if you hit your sister again, you’d be done with the game.

BC: (Intense stare, not budging)

Me: If you don’t turn off the computer, then I will.

BC (Intense stare, heals digging into floor)

Me: (Walking over to computer, shutting off the game)

BC: (Staying put at the desk, not budging or complying.  Just not playing the game.)

During this whole event, I did all the work.  First I told my son to turn off the computer, then realizing that he wasn’t budging and fearing an all out war, I changed my strategy.

Essentially what I did was create uncertainty.  My son could not predict with 100% accuracy the of outcome of his actions, so he rolled the dice, and won.

My behavior and actions were creating his sub-par behavior.

As my father and I were talking he brought up this example to me.

As a teacher I go along my day with my students, just as happy as can be.  The students have choices and I allow them a lot of leeway, as long as they are on task.  But the minute they disobey, fall off task, or step over the acceptable line, all negotiation and additional privileges stop.  They must head back to their desks.  Period.

Why was I not applying these strategies to my own parenting?

Ultimately, I knew the answer.

Fear.

I had given my power to the four year old tyrant living in my home.

It was at this moment when I said to myself, “This is not a democracy.  What I say goes, or there will be consequences.”

The next time my son told me no, he would not follow my directions, I walked over to him, got eye level and said with the most serious voice and facial expression I could muster, “You WILL follow my directions, or you WILL go to time out.”  And I stared.  I did not break eye contact.

He realized the shift in my parenting, and reluctantly complied.

Not only did this shift all but end the tantrums.  But knowing the consequences to his actions with 100% certainty also, amazingly enough, allowed my son to breathe again.  It was like he was a new kid again.  The smile returned to his face and his happy atmosphere returned to our house.

Kids crave boundaries.  A lack of boundaries creates uncertainty.  Uncertainty creates confusion.  Confusion creates fear.  Fear creates an unsafe feeling.  Kids who feel unsafe act out.  Acting out creates tantrums.  Tantrums are HELL for parents!!

My son and daughter have multiple choices throughout the day.  They choose their clothes, what they want for breakfast, and where and how they play, just to name a few.  But the one thing they no longer choose is when and how they to pay attention to our rules.

In times of distress, our house is not a democracy.  It’s a dictatorship.

How much negotiating is too much?

Let me back up.  We’ve been dealing with some pretty shocking 4 year old tantrum behavior from our son.  It started back in August, just a month after his fourth birthday.  I immediately began researching (thank God for Google!!) tantrum behaviors, anxiety, and just about anything I could find related to the subject.  The results were minimal.  Not much seems to be written about this stage in life.

BC’s behavior and the root cause of why he was acting out consumed us.  It’s all we talked about.  Not knowing why was about as hard as not knowing how to stop the actual behaviors.  I started reaching out to friends.  Asking if they dealt with similar problems when one of their children was four.

The resounding answer?

Yes.

Most every mom I spoke to had or has a child going through this phase.  With this realization, about 10 pounds lifted off my shoulders.

My son is not broken.  He’s testing.

I can deal with testing.  Broken?  No.  Testing, abso-freaking-lutely!

Once we realized the root of BC’s tantrum behavior was a struggle for power I was able to jump into action.

Tantrums at our house happened generally during three different times.

1. School Drop-Off

During the drop off at school BC’s behavior went from sweet, loving, and outgoing to horrible, thrashing tantrum behavior.  We called ahead to the school, let them know of the new developments and created a plan with the teachers.  We’d bring BC to school (kicking and screaming) and the teachers would peal him out of our arms.  We’d quickly say goodbye and leave.

And then I’d cry.

Each day we applied this technique, it took a total of 10–15 minutes before he was calm and playing with the other kids happily.

This lasted for 4 class sessions.  At that point, BC decided to attend school happily.  Phew!!

2. Time Outs

One day BC decided that he would not sit on a time out any longer.  This is when all negotiations in our house came to an end.  He must obey.  We attempted the Supernanny technique of putting the child back to time out without any eye contact, emotion, or communication.

This was hard.  I got mad.  I was tired.  So was my son.

But I did it.  The first time it took 57 minutes of continuously putting him back on time-out. There a LOT of screaming, crying, kicking etc. before he’d stay.  But he stayed.

This was by far the hardest thing I’d ever done.  But I did it and it made each additional time-out we dealt with so much easier.

The next time-out took 17 minutes of ‘put backs’ before he stayed.

That was the last time he tested so severely during his time-outs.

3.  Bedtime/Nighttime

This was the hardest tantrum for us to break.  First we were very concerned because we knew that our son was effected by my grandmother’s death this summer.  Her funeral was the first time he saw me cry.  He knew my  grandma and missed her terribly.  The nighttime routine became torturous for us.  It began to take about an hour to put BC down, and there were still no guarantees that our tactics would work.  Half the nights ended in a full blown hour-long tantrum as we attempted to leave the room.  By the end of the fit, we were sitting with/ laying with/ holding our son.

Totally ineffective.

This was our final frontier.  We had to move past the nighttime tantrum in order to be freed from this horrible weight that was effecting our entire family.

We finally decided that enough was enough.  I let BC know that then next time he didn’t stay in bed at nighttime he’d be put back to bed over and over again until he stayed.  In addition, I would not talk to him.

At 12:30 a.m. a following day the tantrum began.  In Supernanny fashion, I said, “It’s bedtime darling.”  and placed him in bed.

The second time he got up, I firmly said, “It’s bedtime.”

The third through the 75th time he got out of bed, kicking, screaming, etc. I simply picked him up, put him on his mattress without a word or eye contact.

He was pissed.

But after 35 minutes, he stayed.

That episode was well over a week ago and the last time we had a tantrum in our house.

Helpful Tip:

If I could suggest anything to you as you go through this phase it would be to completely disconnect, emotionally during these episodes.

If you don’t, you may hurt your child, inadvertently, or make the tantrum worse and last longer by reacting.

Disconnect and prepare for a long, drawn out fit.  Because when you decide to change your behavior, your child will push harder to get what he wants.

Disconnect.  Then reconnect when the episode is over.

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Thus concludes my first episode of Learning Through Experience!  Stay tuned for the next episode when I say, “This is NOT a democracy!”

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If you liked this post, you may also like my post on Nighttime Potty Training.

Four year old tantrum