A moment to remember

My little 3 year old boy did something that touched my heart and brought a tear to my eyes tonight. And I have to pen it down in this journal so that I will always remember this special moment.

Aiden has been toilet trained for about 6 months but he is still on nappies at night. I have read and heard from many experienced mothers that boys generally take longer than girls to be fully toilet trained - day and night. In fact, many boys still incur "accidents" in bed right up to the age of 10 (omg)! Hence with Aiden, I really haven't been too fussed about training him at night. I figure that he will just do away with night nappies when he is ready, whenever that may be.

Now, the problem started a couple of nights ago. I don't know what the reason is, but his pee has been leaking out of his nappy and wet the bed in the middle of the night. For 3 nights in a row. And it drove me crazy. We do not have a protector for his matteress as we haven't been able to find one in Japan so imagine the work I have to do when he wets his bed at night. The standard operating procedure for wet bed situation is this:

•  All his soft toys have to be cleared from his bed
• the sheets have to be off and washed
• the quilt cover has to be pulled off and washed
• the quilt has to be cleaned and left on the balcony to dry and air
• the dirty patch on the matteress has to be cleaned (a damn hard chore by the way)
• his pyjamas has to be soaked before they can be washed with other laundry
• clean new sheets to be put on again at night before he goes to bed

And it happened 3 days in a row! All of the above chores multiply by 3! Seriously, all I remember doing for the past few days is washing. MANY loads of washing.

So my husband and I decided to tell Aiden that he can no longer pee in his nappy by explaining to him that he is growing up so fast that his nappy can no longer hold the increased quantity of pee. He took it well and was even guilty of the fact that he wet his bed and made a mess.

This morning, my husband woke up and discovered that the toilet door was ajar and the lights were on. Aiden was still asleep in his room so my husband asked if I used the toilet in the middle of the night, which I didn't. So Aiden was the one who used it! We asked his later in the day and he admitted waking up to use the toilet as he needed to pee. We were so proud of him as we really didn't expect a 3 year old to remember waking up from his sleep to use the toilet just becasue we told him to.

But the special moment was tonight. After reading to him and turning off the lights, I asked if he needed to use the toilet. He said he didn't need to and I reminded him to try not to pee in his nappy when he sleep. Then I left him to go downstairs. Our bedrooms are all on 2nd level and Aiden knows his dad and I are still downstairs watching tv while he is alone upstairs trying to sleep. 1/2 hour later, I heard some noise from the child monitor so I went closer to the stairways and heard him opening the door of the toilet, and subsequent flushing followed by some rustling sound which I presume was him pulling up his nappy and pyjamas bottoms. Then he went straight to bed again! When I checked on him just then, he was sleeping soundly and even had himself tucked under the quilt!

Allow me to enjoy this special moment and bask in pride. If you are not a parent, this may not mean anything special to you. But for me, this is a very special milestone. My baby is growing up. And he is really developing into a mature and independent child. And may I remind you that he only turned 3 less than three months ago!

Toddlers are capable of pushing your buttons and can be very defiant. They also tend to develop fears out of nowhere - fear of monsters, fear of the dark, fear of being alone etc. So for what Aiden did yesterday and tonight, I am truly very proud of him. He is a good boy. And I just have to keep reminding myself not to expect too much from him all the time. Afterall, he is only 3.
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