Loo literature

I have discovered that during this phase of toddler OCD and the great war of wills, you really have to pick your battles. More often than not I resort to any kind of cajoling and game playing to avoid the tantrums (not always hers) but my toilet tactics are coming back to bite me on the bum.

Isla virtually potty trained herself and my only contribution really was buying the pants. These days, I would kill for her bladder control and she regularly only volunteers to go once or twice a day. I tried force- feeding her water to get her to go more, but she was adamant she didn't need to, so I resorted to the 'let's see who can do the longest pee' game. I know, its bad.  But being my daughter, there's nothing she likes more than a bit of competition and without hesitation she's pants down, on the potty, letting it all out.

In the privacy of our own home, this seems fairly harmless but when you're in a public toilet and she's loudly exclaiming, 'well done mummy, that was a good one', you have to question your tactics.  This was made worse by the follow-up comment, 'mummy can i wipe your bottom now, please mummy, pleeease!' I just want to make it clear she has never ever done this, nor has she ever made such a request before but logically I guess she thinks if I can wipe hers, then what's wrong with her returning the favour. It's just unfortunate that we had to work through this particular conversation in a John Lewis cubicle.

In the last week, I have now been doing battle with trying to get her off the loo. She will sit on the potty and say to me, 'Mummy, I need my Prince & Princess book and my stool, thank you mummy'. I duly bring her the Royal Wedding issue of OK! magazine and her step stool, upon which she places her magazine and flicks through the pages whilst comfortably seated on her potty and providing me with a running commentary about which princess is her favourite (Kate closely followed by Camilla's granddaugher). Fine chatter on a lazy Sunday, not so good at 7.15am on a 'school' day with a train to catch.

It took me a while to realise that I could hardly get annoyed with Isla when this behaviour was a direct consequence of my own. Quite often while she's in the bath, I will sit on the loo (lid down, trousers up, honest), flicking through a copy of Hello!, while she painstakingly fills and empties plastic containers.  And so now, seeing as it was me who introduced her to loo literature, I am working on my next act of bribery to wean her off. The promise of 10 bounces on her bed seems to be working well so far ...

three in the bed ...

Ever since the prison bars came down from Isla's cotbed, she and monkey have sneaked their way into my bed in the middle of the night. When Isla was a baby, I was a militant routine mother, determined to have a contented little baby just like the one in the books. I spent hours leaning over the cot, stroking her back and making 'ssshing' noises, the theory being it sounded like the noise in the womb and in twenty minutes they'd be asleep. But if they woke up before twenty minutes you had to start all over again. Inevitably eighteen minutes in, the crying would begin, I could practically taste the glass of wine waiting downstairs but devoutly begun the whole process again. Later on I would try lying down on the floor next to her, by bum cheeks going numb in the winter air and gradually crawling out commando style in the vain hope she wouldn't stir. Instead of being addicted to the X Factor, my evening 'entertainment' meant eyes glued to the baby monitor looking for any flicker of red lights as she woke up realising I wasn't there. It didn't take long for me to decide I had better things to do with my time and let her cry it out.

But after two years of silent nights, Isla woke up to the fact that she had rights too. And, after one lengthy bout of screaming and a loud thud on the floor she also woke up to the fact that she could climb/fall out of her cot. So down came the bars and a cheeky monkey was unleashed. After doing the equivalent of a marathon going up and down the stairs putting her back to bed and more sleeping on the floor and bottom shuffling out the door, it was time for reinforcements. This time it was Isla's turn to sleep on the floor, as I transformed her bedroom into a cattle pen with the help of a stair gate. Exhausted by her own protestations, I would find her lying squashed up against the gate,  but it only took a couple of nights for her to decide the bed was in fact a more comfortable option.

Soon after, the gate became my bribery weapon of choice. 'If you stay in bed, i'll keep the gate open, but if you get out of bed, I will have to close it.' Inevitably, I would hear the creak of a floorboard and see two small feet padding down the stairs and hear a squeal of delight at her own mischeviouness. Consequently, the gate was always shut when she clambered back in to bed but with only a moments objection before she was fast asleep. But now it seems it is part of our nightly ritual. I kiss her goodnight, she tells me not to close the gate. I leave it open, she sneaks downstairs a few minutes later, I take her back to bed and shut the gate. The other night, on returning her to bed she said 'shut the gate mummy'. So much for bribery.

For a while I figured I should try and get her into the habit of going to bed without any props, after all its only a matter of time before she masters the gate. So, I took the advice of Supernanny, picking Isla up and putting her back with no eye contact and no words. Apparently, this is the best bedtime game a two-year old could possibly imagine. After a dozen times of returning her to bed, not only was she squealing with excitment but putting her arms up in readiness for the lift. Why do they make discipline sound so straightforward in the book, then try it in practice and you've just invented a brilliant new game?

Once she's asleep, leg dangling, mouth wide open, I always open the gate and invariably in the night I feel a pat, pat, pat on my arm. Without even opening my eyes, I haul Isla and monkey in, exchange whispered 'love you's' and then we all roll over and go back to sleep, happily defying every baby book ever written about sharing the family bed. But at 2am I come from the 'path of least resistance' school-of-thought more than that of Gina Ford.

So this morning, when I woke to find that Isla had stayed in her own bed all night, I gave her a congratulatory sticker but couldn't help feeling a twinge of sadness knowing that in a few short years I will be lucky to snatch any cuddles at all let alone wake up to the cheeky smile and cheery cry of 'mummy, its sunny time!' each morning.