I came out of my child’s pediatric well check feeling like an incompetent mom earlier this week. It was the first time I’d really felt like I wasn’t on the same page as the pediatrician. It was a little disconcerting. And also completely ruined my Valentine’s Day. My mood completely nose-dived.
My spouse took our little for a walk while I tried to get my head back on straight, which is when I realized a couple of things. The biggest of those was that we hadn’t truly had a conversation about what we were doing, and as a result, it felt like I was being lectured. There isn’t really time during these appointments for anything more in depth. And thus, I was unable to explain how I’ve been trying to scaffold my son’s learning.
Scaffold. For those unfamiliar with the term in this context, it comes from education. Scaffolding is the idea that you need to build base skills in order to build on top of them. If you throw your kid in the deep end, they might learn what you want, but it is easier to learn if you teach them the base skills they will need first.
What I was having a hard time explaining was that while sleep is a priority for us, we hadn’t yet been working on the separation skills our little would need to sleep on their own. We had, on the other hand, been scaffolding potty training skills for a couple of months. They had the basics for how to use both the little potty and the big potty. They knew how to push down and pull up their own trousers. They were recognizing when their diapers were dirty and asking for changes. They were wiping themselves.
So when she pushed to say that sleep training should be more important and to postpone potty training, I was thrown. So confident was I in my own parenting choices, I neglected to explain myself properly. I struggled to reverse direction to give an explanation. Which I admit, “my little one is showing interest in the potty,” doesn’t even come close to explaining how much progress had already been made.
So, after looking at all of our kiddo’s learning milestones, my spouse and I have determined that despite the pediatrician’s recommendation, we will be going forward with the transition out of diapers this weekend. Will it work? We will find out. But knowing when they are pooping and peeing is really all that is left for them to learn. And believing them capable and showing that are the best tools you can have.
Sleep will come next when we’re ready and have some more tools in our separation toolbox. We will all sleep better if the scaffold is built securely.