How to potty train your child?

“How do you potty train your kids?” asked my friends. Since this topic is quite popular among some of my friends thus I guess it will be nice to share my own experience. 

Some important tips:

• Every kid is different 

• More haste, less speed 

• Observe your child’s readiness 

• Make it fun

• Let’s go toilet together

Every kid is different. The rumour says that girls potty trained earlier than boys. Does it apply to all girls? I don’t think so. My girl was only able to ditch the diapers totally when she was 5 years old but my boy was diaper free when he was just barely 4. So, it really depends on your child’s personality and readiness.

More haste, less speed. I remembered the stress I had when my girl’s preschool teacher said that most of her classmates were toilet trained and my girl was the last two who were yet to. I discussed with the teachers that Claire was not ready yet because she was a year-end born baby. But the stress from school and family “how come your girl is not diaper-free yet?” were lingering and thus I decided to potty her earlier even though she was not really yet. Consequences? Lots of peeing incident, change of bedsheets, and sadly cries. :( After two weeks, I decided to stop and try after a month later thinking of how should I make this better.

Observe your child’s readiness. How do you know your child is ready to attempt this new milestone? 

• Their diapers are dry or very less pee during their awake time. It is a super good news If their diaper is also dry during nap time. 
• They want to go toilet with you to pee which means your little ones are interested to know how adults pee in the toilet. Oh yes, if this happen, please really welcome them to observe you peeing in the toilet. My boy became interested when he saw his father did his pee. It became like a mini-sharing session between them on how to aim their pee into the toilet bowl. :p

Make it Fun!

Week 1 and 2:

• Show them books, videos and songs about potty training or how is it like to become a big boy and girl without diapers. There’s quite a number of them online and my favourite videos is: Elmo Potty Time.
• Involve your child in the purchase of his potty. Show them pictures of some of the potty you have selected and let him choose which to buy :)
• Teach him how to pull down their pants and sit on the potty.

Day time Diaper Free Challenge. We had reward charts which rewarded her for totally dry diapers (though sometimes I feel “wah! Waste diaper!” But this is what she is comfortable with”) to train her confidence level. “Yeah! See no pee pee!” I exclaimed. We used the Huggies XL diaper so you can see the pee indicators clearly. Place potty at the living room so she is able to access it easily.

If your child is not diaper free during awake time, then it may take a few weeks to train that first.

Week 3 - 5:

Nap/Night time Diaper Free Challenge. When your child is totally diaper free during awake time excluding naps. It is time to observe his readiness during sleeping time. Is there pee on his diaper? Or no pee at all? If so, your child is ready. Yeah!

Try naps first because it is shorter sleep time and achievable milestones to build confidence before transition to night time challenge.

Do the same thing that you did for the day time challenge with potty inside the bedroom. Provide a sensor nightlight which will brighten when they go to their potty or have a portable kids nightlight so they can hold it to go to the potty (especially if their bedroom is dark).

Please be patient and expected pee accidents. Encourage your child and tell them is ok and continue to try. If persistent accidents happen, it means your child needs to a break from this training (maybe you too!) and try it maybe a week later.

Let’s go toilet together!

This may seem weird for first time parents but seeing is doing. Let your child see you pee and even poo. They will learn what are good habits and what to do in the toilet. Don’t be shy :p

Lastly, the stress and lack of child’s readiness prolong training. Just remember that your child ultimately will be potty ready or train. Breathe and relax. This is really true after I tried the above steps for my younger child. He was totally diaper free a few days before he is 4 years old. 

All the best :)

Deariebear Mommie

Chinese sausage chicken rice using rice cooker

Chinese Sausage Chicken Rice using Rice Cooker (Philips HD3126)

Chinese Sausage Chicken Rice using Philips HD3126 Rice Cooker

This one pot dish is one of my kids’ favourites at home. The smell released from the rice cooker is so heavenly that you will definitely ask for another second or third round of serving.

There are many versions and ways of cooking this rice recipe and the most common method is using a claypot. However, busy mums like us would prefer anything that is fast and easy. Thus I would highly recommend using a rice cooker so you don’t need to watch a claypot over fire. I have another example of using rice cooker but to cook Chinese Lotus Pork Rib soup.

Any rice cooker can be used to cook this one pot meal. Even this single-function Philips HD3126 would do the trick. (Detailed reviews at the end) 

You can purchase it from store at Lazada. It is having a promotion and it is the cheapest as compared to other sites like Qoo10.

Serves: 6 Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 45 mins using Rice Cooker

INGREDIENTS

• 400-500g of boneless chicken breast (cut into chunks) (marinate with 1 tablespoon each of oyster sauce, light and dark soya sauce, optional of 2 inches of grated ginger)
• 2 Chinese sausages (cut into slices)
• 4 dried shiitake mushrooms (soak in hot water and keep the water then thinly sliced)
• 6 slices of ginger
• 4 garlic cloves (minced)
• 1 teaspoons of sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• Dashes of white pepper
• 4 tablespoons of cooking oil
• 2 teaspoon of sesame oil
• 1.5 to 2 cups of rice (washed and drained off water)

PREPARATION

• Marinate chicken with 1 tablespoon each of oyster sauce, light soya sauce and dark soya sauce. Grate 2 inches of ginger (optional) onto the chicken and mix them. Put it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes
• Soak dried mushrooms in hot water till soft. Then slice them thinly after removing their stems. Keep the soaked water
• Wash and drain 2 cups of rice in the rice pot and pour in the mushroom soaked water
• Prepare the rest of the ingredients 

INSTRUCTIONS

• Heat up a pan and pour in cooking oil
• Sauté garlic and ginger till you smell their fragrance
• Add in the mushrooms and Chinese sausages for a few minutes
• Add in the marinated chicken and stir fry till they turn slightly pinkish
• Add in sugar, salt and dashes of pepper and stir fry a few more minutes
• Pour the pan of food onto the rice pot with rice. Do not need to mix them
• Put in enough drinking water till it reaches level 3 or cup 3
• Cook it using normal rice cooking function (takes between 30 mins to 45 mins depending on your rice cooker)
• Keep warm for 10-15 mins
• Open up lid and fluff and mix the rice with the ingredients 
• Enjoy your yummy one pot Chinese sausage chicken rice!

Deariebear Mommie Tips

• You can opt out the grated ginger during the chicken marination if you don’t really like small ginger in your rice. 
• If you want the rice to be more moist, you can put in more water like 1/2 small cup of water with 1/2 tablespoon each of oyster sauce, light soya sauce and dark oyster sauce

Full video on cooking Chinese Sausage Chicken Rice in Philips HD3126 Rice Cooker

Reviews of Philips HD3126 Rice Cooker

Features that I particular love:

• Size is good for a family of 4
• Rice is super fluffy and moist as compared to multi-function rice cooker
• Cook faster than normal rice cooker
• Compact size and stylish
• Only 2 buttons (Cook, Warm). Super easy to use

It is having 10% discount now. Catch it before it is gone :)

Happy one pot cooking! :)

How to use Zearn to learn maths?

I chanced upon this useful maths website, Zearn when my girl was doing her online learning. 

During the circuit breaker. I decided to let my boy to try out Zearn for his Maths out of desperation because I did not know what other activities we can do the whole day. Imagine I have to plan activities for them to do the whole day everyday..

Fortunately, It turned out to be a really useful learning website for them to learn Maths and both of them are “killing” it.

For students:

Zearn is very simple and straight forward to use. I like the fact that it uses a real person to explain the concepts and also infuse with games and badges to motivate students. It included clear progress chart for both students and teachers or parents to monitor students’ progress.

For parents or teachers:

Zearn allows you to create a class roaster of students and assign the grade level to different students.

Zearn helps you to monitor learning progress of your children or students.

It also provide clear descriptions of the different “missions” and guides for offline activities to reinforce the maths concepts.

To conclude this review: It is a useful online website to learn Maths. It provides clear instructions and simple games to motivate students. Another great news is that it is free! I’m not too sure how long it will be free but it allows free registrations due to convid. Thus, please sign up for your kids while it is still available unless you wish to pay for it :)