Help me Obi Wan Kamommies! You're my only hope!

Sounds like Mr. B has a case of the green-eyed monsters.


Is he wanting some of your attention himself?


And why is he going around you to address Mo directly? "United front" is something to be maintained at all costs, even when there is disagreement behind the scenes. If he has an issue with how things are going, he needs to approach you first, the two of you hash it out, then you inform Mo of the new policy, if any.

IMO, anyway.


As for wiping, is Mo capable of doing himself but asks you to do it, or is it a skill he needs to develop?

And lord knows I have to bite my lip to let Yaya try to put on her clothes or shoes, then redo it. Sometimes you just want to get out the door.

T and I have jokes about they ways in which "toddler time" differs from our time sense.

How old is Mo?

Oh a Kadaddy! Nice.

If Mr. B thinks I'm going to wipe his butt he's got another think coming!

I really don't think Mr. B was doing this out of some weird vindictive or angry place. I was in the kitchen immersed in something and Mo started yelling for me to come wipe his butt.

Mr. B, knowing I was right in the middle of something told Mo that I was busy and asked what he needed. The whole thing just escalated from there. In order for me to present a united front I had to just stay out of it. Then, of course, Mo was blaming me for the whole mess and crying and calling for me to come help and I couldn't because then I would be going around Mr. B and that wouldn't present a unified front at all.

It was a very complicated few minutes that seemed like forever.

Mo will be five years old next month, material girl.

Where is Sylvia Rimm when you need her? Putting the united front issue aside for now, if Mo is capable of doing it himself then he should -- same for getting dressed.

I'm plagiarizing the good doctor here, but I believe the steps go something like this.

1) Communicate to Mo that he will be expected to wipe his butt or get dressed on his own. Do this in a collaborative way. You want to help him build confidence and independence. "Mo, since you are getting to be such a big boy, it's time for us to do it this way. When you are dressed you may come down for breakfast." Or, "Mo, you are such a big boy now, you are going to start wiping your own butt. If you can keep your undies clean for a week you may have a friend over, or go to the pool, or have a special toy, whatever.
2) Hold your ground. Once you've agreed to the expectations there can be no deviation. You might be late for something or he might miss breakfast or you might be in a public restroom longer than you'd like or you might find soiled undies, but under no circumstances do you wipe his butt of get him dressed.
3) After a few days or weeks, you won't remember ever having wiped his butt.

This is all fresh in my mind because I am doing this with duckie now about getting dressed in the morning. He's been dressing himself since he was three, but for some reason since we've moved I started helping him in the morning. I think it's because his schedule starts so much earlier here that I knew he'd have trouble adjusting to the early mornings and he was barely awake. But I finally decided that there is no reason for me to continue to do this, and it takes up time that I could be using to fix breakfast. So that's what I told him and we are doing the above plan to set it right. We've had good days and bad but he always dresses himself and he hasn't missed the bus yet. He did miss breakfast once. Once.

if this is something he needs to learn how to do...? you could try getting those 'kiddy wipes'.. they are small wet wipes that come in a little pop up box like baby wieps. They have a little green frog on the side and characters on the wipes.
I have heard from some of the mommies I know using things like those to help boost the ' wipe your own butt' lesson.

If this is something he already knows how to do, but just preferrs YOU doing it..
oy vey.. thats a total diffrent monster all together.

Maybe take the stand point of privacy and personal space.. kinda like the octopus incident..?

been there, done that, twice!

K was a slow developer, had lots of anxieties, and didn't what to have anything to do with putting her hands 'there'. She would hold it until she got home so that I would be there to help with the wiping. I set an up-coming birthday as the end of my involvement (maybe you could use New Year's Day) and said I would help her get ready for that day by following up with a wipe after she had given it her best effort. She was prepared for the transition and it went without a hitch by the time her birthday came.

M, was a fast developer, fearless, and was simply grossed out by the concept. She thought I should do it since anything so gross must be the job of the mother I did the same transition type thing with her but we used her four year old birthday rather than the later one we used for K (five, I think).

Hmm, sorry if this is too much information but Im sure I can remember getting my butt butt wiped after i was 5,but I honestly cant remember the transition to doing it for myself, or how old I was.
Maybe you can compromise, you do it one time then the next time Mo gives it a go.

Total agreement with DrewDad.

It's something that has come up with E.G., too -- he just gets sick of something, and suddenly insists that it stop, and then I have to lecture him (with the aid of child development textbooks) about why even if our goal is the same (to get a given behavior to stop), there are other ways to make that happen.

And totally about the consult first. With E.G., he had to be talked out of a mindset that I make all the decisions about sozlet so it is equality if he unilaterally makes some decisions, even when I'm there. The problem with this is that I am overwhelmingly the primary parent -- something like 90 percent of the time I am the only one there caring for her. It's just not practical if I delay every decision until he can be reached to discuss it.

This taps into guilt for him -- he wants to be there more often, feels badly he isn't -- and ends up with him issuing some edict, me not liking it one bit, and me HATING to be in the position of either contradicting him in front of sozlet or going along with something I think is WRONG.

That happened a fair amount last winter (everyone was tired and stressed and not on their best behavior), we've talked about it a lot and he's gotten a lot better.

So, on to the specifics of this case... I think your reaction is understandable and correct. I think that if the goal is for Mo to wipe, then you build up the goal with whatever positives you can think of (and if there aren't any organic/ inherent ones, create a reward system), teach him how, and take it (at his pace) from there.

Mr. B may have just made this a power struggle, in which wiping is not a cool accomplishment that Mo can feel proud of himself for, but a capitulation. That's not a good way to start any learning process.

Meanwhile, sozlet wipes for pee but can't do poop yet. She's on her way -- tries now and then -- but it's too awkward an angle, her arms are too short, and she just doesn't get all of it. And it's not one of those things that work well as letting them try and do as well as they can. (Poop + bare butt = rash.) (And that's if she wipes in the right direction...)

As for what to do now, probably:

A) Talk to Mr. B privately and try to figure out what's up HIS butt. (Is it that he thinks it's gross and doesn't want to have to be responsible for it when he takes Mo out? Did he read the "Modern Love" column in the NYT yesterday and come to some cockeyed conclusions [weird column]? Etc.

B) Once you've come to some sort of conclusion/ resolution with Mr. B about the goal, come up with a mutually-agreed upon plan as to how to achieve it, with what kind of timeline. (Another thing that has been tough for E.G. is that if there is a change he wants to happen, he wants it to happen NOW. The two-steps forward, one-step back thing we were just talking about with shewolf really makes him batty.)

C) Clearly and consistently apply the plan, with room for flexibility if it's not working.

Re: B and C, that's just if you decide on a plan rather than "he's too young, relax". Which is what I'd tend towards, I think.

I was typing when this was posted (sozlet is very interrupty, took a while), that's exactly the situation I can't stand. It's not fair to you, and it shouldn't happen. We're (mostly) past that point, took a lot of talking. Occasionally it just can't be avoided if there are genuine misunderstandings, but often just a bit of communication (wordless or verbal) before it starts helps tremendously.

lol. I recently learned the "right direction" thing. The things you learn as a daddy....

Hee hee...!

I do like J_B's suggestion of follow-up (let them try first), that makes sense.

Oh wow. Lots of information here. Thanks!

Perhaps this is a bigger can of worms than I thought.

Mo's birthday is next month so that really does provide us with an easy "goal" date with plenty of time to talk it up beforehand.

It is interesting to me that Mo doesn't want to be "big". Using "big boy" as an incentive doesn't seem to work with him at all.

Hmmm......

I do buy the flushable wet wipes but I think the little green frog thing is long gone. Maybe I need to pick up another.

It is not something he "knows" how to do yet -- it's something he has to learn.

We were laying in bed this morning talking about it. There is a train that he wants for his train set so I told him he would have to earn the money to buy it and suggested some things he could do to help me around the house to earn money. One of those things was wiping his own butt.

He told me that his arms were too short to do it himself. Maybe he's right! I hadn't thought about the awkward angle and the coordination involved with getting your arms around there.

I have yet to come across a concept Mo would deem "gross".

Maybe asparagus but that's a different thing entirely.

The you do it/I do it compromise sounds very doable!

The power struggle thing.... whoo. I hate that.

I think Mr. B picked a really terrible day to try that on. We had gone out to his company Christmas dinner the night before and Mo had gone to bio-grandma's house for a few hours. He loves to go there but he does not handle schedule disruptions well -- especially when they affect bed time.

Mo woke up grouchy to begin with.

Then this.

It was getting so out of hand that I motioned Mr. B out of the room and told him that he either resolved it - somehow - in the next few minutes or that I was going to step in and resolve it.

To his credit he did resolve it and they ended up as buddies despite the whole mess.

I DO think he was sending the wrong message. Mo wasn't viewing the DIY wiping as an accomplishement.

I can't stand that stuff either, soz. It's maddening.

Mr. B and I usually communicate on these things better. This just erupted out of nowhere.

Ok, so a couple of important things there. It seems Mo might not be ready -- saying his arms won't reach indicates that he's having a hard time with it, kids don't usually make this stuff up. Being a big boy is no incentive, but a reward system could work. I'm thinking the teamwork approach, like what J_B said, is probably best. He does his best and you follow up. Lots of positive reinforcement. "Hey, you did such a good job that I don't need to follow up." Or, "Mo, you are getting much better at this."

If he starts kindergarten next year, you might want to talk about how there will be no-one there to help him wipe his butt -- provided he has a positive feeling about going to kindegarten, wouldn't want to add stress if he's anxious about it. It's pretty far off so he'll have plenty of time to work on it in the mean time.

The united front issue is still there, of course, but I have nothing to add to such great insight as you've already gotten from soz and DrewDad. We have these issues too, but right now hubby is still in PA so there is a hiatus in parenting conflicts.

I guess it could be that he is just not ready. It sounds like many kids aren't ready at his age.

I wish there were magic numbers that told you when this stuff should happen.

I just did a little physical test with sozlet, clothes on and everything, seeing how far she could reach. It was enough, I think, so we'll probably start trying to do it more, too. She's terrible about going in the right direction, which I think (!) is more a girl issue than a boy issue, that always makes me nervous. But I think we'll revisit this. (In general, that's our approach -- try, see how it goes, and if it doesn't go well, table it.)

Sozlet's the same way about "big girl" stuff not always working, by the way. Maybe it's more a thing when there are older siblings there to emulate (or younger ones to differentiate oneself from)? That's been a problem in the past, but then rather abruptly she's full of being five and how big she is and how much she can do. Washed her hair entirely on her own for the first time, etc. <shrug> Kids.

The direction thing is more of a girl issue. Thank goodness I don't have that to deal with on top of all the other wiping things!

Lukily Mo has a top notch digestive system and.... er.... if I may be so.... ummmm..... graphic?..... he don't have a lot of residue left over to wipe off.

That is interesting to me about sozlet not being impressed with the "big girl" stuff either. Maybe it is an only child kind of thing. I remember wanting so bad to be "big" so I could get to do the stuff big kids did.

Great....just another thing to look forward to! I know I am yet to be a parent but these are things that happen in real life no one tells you about so it's good education for me to read so that I'll at least have a clue.