Bathroom habits

Daycare is getting on my case because Ozzy and Miles don't wipe their own butts. I have tried this battle and they don't like it, and frankly I am too tired to force it right now. Are 4 year olds supposed to be competent butt wipers?

It may be a moot point because I totally snapped at the daycare teacher this morning. They present me with a parenting improvement basically every time I walk in the door, and mama wasn't playing that this morning. I am sure she'll overreact and we'll have to have a Big Conversation about it, because that happens all the time.

 

My girls, at just over 5, still suck at wiping for poop. We insist they always wipe themselves but then we double check although this *just* started after they turned 5 in July). They do a good job about 50% of the time - the other 50% they either miss it completely (it's a still a pretty big stretch for them to even reach), smear it all up their lower back or get it all over their hands. Ugh. So I would say no, they shouldn't be competent butt wipers at 4.

 

That makes me feel better. I have a hard time distinguishing between what's appropriate and what's reactionary to militant/unrealistic daycare demands lately.

 

I don't expect my kids to be good butt wipers until they start Kindergarten. Some of my kids were good at 2 and some not until right before they started kindergarten. So expecting all 4 yr olds to do a good job seems unrealistic to me.

 

Sorry the Daycare is giving you a hard time.
I would think at age 4 in day care the boys should try and wipe himself. Then underwear gets bleached at home because you know they don't do a good job. i know when my girls were 4, they only went to school 2 1/2 hours a day and they had to go to the bathroom all by themselves. But at home I usually wiped after they wiped to make sure they got everything.

 

I agree they should be trying, and we've been trying to encourage that somewhat, but they're fighting it. I know I should push more, but I also feel like we've just finally got to a really good place with potty training and I felt like I needed a breather before we move on to the next thing.

I guess what bothers me more is the delivery of their messages. Instead of just brightly discussing what they're going to try or talking about it like a normal person, their teacher pulls me aside and speaks in hushed tones. She never talks to me other than to mention something that she doesn't like about what we're doing at home. Ever. No niceties, no "hey, your kids are doing really well", nothing positive. If I don't agree exactly with what she's saying she gives me this really surprised/shocked/disappointed look. Then she'll basically shame me into agreeing with her, telling me how important it is to kids self esteem to do things for themselves and how I am undermining their confidence and basically raising hopeless children if they don't' learn to wipe their butts this weekend or whatever the issue of the day is. This morning I was not up for that at all, so I just said "ok, under advisement, I'll think about it", and I turned around and walked out. Not super mature, but definitely the most rational thing I could manage today.

 

I don't know why you deal with that from your daycare. I know options are limited sometimes so we have to put up with crap we don't want to, but she is seriously out of line.

 

I know. The time has come to do something about it. In the tidal wave of starting work and everything I just sort of put up with it, but I realized this morning how much it stresses me out. We pay a lot of money for daycare; we shouldn't have to be dealing with this kind of garbage every day. The only reason I can tolerate it is because they are exceptional with the kids. Seriously.. so good to them that it does make me question my own parenting skills because they're so happy there.

The trouble is, our options are very limited. Daycare spots inner city where we live are really limited and it can take months to change daycares. In the meantime I need to figure out a way to live with them until we can get in somewhere else. I was considering letting them do kindergarten there next year, but I can't put up with this for the next 2 years. It seriously stresses me out to have to pick them up at the end of the day because I might have to talk to the teachers. That's not healthy!

Blargh. I could rant all day, but I should just admit: it's been a hard week and I am tired and probably oversensitive. I have no capacity to deal with things this week. I do feel like daycare should be a relief though instead of a source of stress.

 

Is it one teacher (or team) or a culture within the center? How's the director? There is NO WAY I could handle that, either. Yuck. Big hugs to you and well done on not snapping.

 

Royce smeared poop all over the toilet yesterday. :bad:

My two never really had a problem, but I can't believe that all 4 year olds are competent butt wipers. Shoot, sometimes my HUSBAND isn't a competent wiper (Double gross.)

 

The director is worse than the teacher. When we first started she was about 6 months pregnant with her first baby, and no joke, she sat us down in our first meeting to tell us how to parent. I was kind of worked up about it then, but we didn't have any other good options and there was a lot to be excited about the daycare. The first few weeks they were there were a complete disaster. They regressed pottying, they resisted naps (because they haven't napped in 2 years!) and they weren't paying attention to the rules. I get this; they're FOUR. This all seemed like pretty typical stuff to me. Yet, the director was setting up meetings with me every single day and cornering me when I came in to update me on their (lack of) progress. It was really out of hand. I am not kidding you that I was in tears every day because I just wanted something to be going right.

Finally, she hauled me in for a meeting and I laid it out for her: I don't want to hear every negative thing because they are child care professionals and they should be equipped to deal with very normal four year old stuff. I also told her that her expectations were too high, and that she needed to readjust her expectations. I based this on a coworker who refused to sign up at her daycare because the director criticized her 18 month old for being "very physical" because he was taking things off a shelf when they met.

Since then, she's been very cold to me and takes every opportunity to chip away at me. She never resists an opportunity.. even when the kids have had a good day and everything has gone well, she'll then point something out like "oh, I just have to tell you, you have something on your shirt" or whatever. She's a meangirl, basically.

She also has some business practices we've had issue with. She had her 2 week daycare break so everyone could go on vacation, but she charged us for the whole month. When my husband e-mailed her about it, she just ignored him. We feel awkward bringing it up again (and we haven't had time) so we're basically just going to give her half a cheque next month and see what happens. I know she has talked to other parents about it, but I don't know the outcome. I think she should have sent out an e-mail about it up front and explained why she thinks it's ok to charge us for a full month.

The daycare is also new and they have yet to build cubbies for the kids, so their stuff is a bit disorganized. This is fine, but one teacher will tell me I have to take stuff home because clutter, the next teacher will berate me for not having their stuff there. So for example, the director got on my case for having their swimming stuff there, and since then the mean daycare teacher has taken the kids to the fountain quite frequently and my boys dont' get to play. I have asked them to be more clear about what the kids activities are so I can bring in what they need for the day, but they push it back on me as though I should bring enough stuff for them to be prepared for any eventuality every day.

ARGH. I should not be getting worked up about this. I should just go find options. But honestly, I feel like a crazy person! Is it me? Do I just inspire meanness in people?

 

:bad: Husbands are yucky.

 

Wow, Jen this is ridiculous. We only took our kids to daycare for 2 months while my parents were away this spring, so I am no expert- but man, what you are going through sounds weird. I wanted to comment on the no cubbies issue- can't you bring a backpack for each kid with everything they might need for the week? The backpacks can be hung on a wall, or they can be put in a closet, this way they always have extra clothes/shoes/swimming trunks and whatever else is necessary and there's no clutter.

I am sorry you have to deal with this, and I think you should start looking into an alternative - even if it takes you a few months to move them somewhere else, it may be worth it for your sanity .

 

As a person who went to daycare and a parent of preschoolers, this teacher sounds really negative. It should not be a scarring experience to pick them up everyday. Switching to a different daycare would be ideal, until then I'd avoid contact (maybe by "being on a phone call" every day for the minute at pickup).

My soon to be 4yo boys do wipe themselves but there are days and days where they miss everything. I personally would force them to try every time as its a cleanliness thing but understand being overworked, too.

 

I never forced the wiping issue with any of my kids until they started pre-k. At 4-4.5 yrs old. So since Liam and Rylee started 4K this week, we have been working on them wiping for the last couple weeks. It's definitely a work in progress. I try to go over them at home here. Thankfully their school is only from 8-11 each day so they don't poop there every day. EXPECTING 4 yr olds to be competent is ridiculous, working on it yes, competent, no.

 

My first thought was "why in the world are you putting up with this daycare?" but as a mother with a child in full time day care I know how difficult of a decision and PITA it is to find a new one.

But if I were you, I think I'd do it. You should not have to put up with being criticized as a parent. That's ridiculous.

To answer the original question - my girls have always pretty much wiped themselves. I helped when they were 3 & 4, by Pre-K they were doing it themselves. Cooper is only 2 and potty trained early but he can not wipe himself.

However, daycare helped me potty train him, did not hinder it. They tell me how good he is at pottying there and praise him to me even though I know he can be a handful. One time they told me that he had a fit and that's the most they've ever said negative about him. They tell me when he has an exceptionally good day, but unless I ask them they do not have anything negative to say about him. I want to think that the people he is spending his day with enjoy him and are not seeing flaws in him and then attributing it to my parenting. If I felt like he was being treated as a PITA I would pull him - and giving me tips and telling me how I'm doing it wrong would lead me to believe they weren't enjoying my kid(s).

 

We had one teacher who seemed to only see the negative in Jack. I brought it up to the director, who validated my concerns and helped me find a solution (moving him to another room). Now, they did expose him to a dead bat, and I'm still livid about how that was handled, but when I go to talk to them, they bend over backward to make me happy. It's all, "Rachael, we love your kids. We don't want to lose you. We want to make this work for you." Now, I can be a little scary, but I'd guess you can too. Pull out the scary and get this woman off your butt. Is there an owner you could escalate to?

 

The director is the owner and I doubt very much that she'd tolerate any scary from me; more like ruthlessly eject us from the daycare because we seem to have disrupted her ordered world view. Plus, she has a huge wait list and her program is very desirable, so we wouldn't be missed.

Anyway, it is what it is. I will keep looking for options, but I have a feeling we won't find anything suitable before they start K next year. We're also in the process of selling our house and looking for a new one, so maybe there will be another option closer to us.

Thanks for all your input you guys. It's validating to know that the daycare is more bonkers than I am

 

That sucks. Sometimes we just have to suck it up and be okay with the fact that our kids at least are happy.

 

I am sorry - how can a daycare have waiting lists that is so unprofessional in their handling of the parents even if they are good with the kids? I know, finding a good daycare is like looking for a needle in a haystack in most places ...

Regarding the original question:
My 4 year old DS tries wiping himself, with very varying success. He is too private to ask for help at pre-school (they do help if the kids ask). At home he usually tries himself and then lets us check and help if necessary.
My DD does not like wiping herself, she hates getting her hands dirty (even a drop of pee is drama). She shows no inclination to even try or work on it with us at home. She even needs reminding for pee and is often red and irritated down there, so I know she does not do it at pre-school if there is no one there to remind her. Luckily our pre-school teachers do help with poop if the kids ask them so at least that is taken care of for her. Like you I am not prepared to turn this into a battle yet although I do think she should be trying and am very concerned about the health issues from not wiping, particularly for a girl.

 

We have our kids wipe, but always check them, and usually they have missed at least a little bit. They just started daycare for the first time about 3 weeks ago, and I told the daycare that they could wipe, but that someone would need to check and possibly wipe again. They were totally fine with that.

And I would definitely look at finding a new daycare. I know it can be hard finding openings, but I would NOT continue to put up with being treated like that! You don't deserve that - no parent does.

 

Our preschool director was crazy - and she definitely clashed with a bunch of parents - so much so - a bunch of them kept leaving.

So it's not totally uncommon - but you shouldn't have to put up with this stuff.

As for the closures, we just had to deal it with and pay for the full month. Here that's fairly common I think.

 

I don't get paying for a month when the daycare is closed. Are you kidding? I don't get the daycare being closed. We only get one week a year we can do a vacation and pay half tuition even though our kids aren't there. I sure as heck wouldn't pay full tuition for weeks that the daycare closed, forcing me to pay for other child care.

 

Teachers are entitled to vacation - how is the daycare or preschool going to pay for that if you are only paying 1/2? In all my daycare/preschool experience nothing was prorated. When we had a nanny we gave her two weeks of paid vacation, plus almost all of the holidays. When your employer is closed, do you get paid? I do.

 

Of course teachers should get vacation, but what our daycare does it give the teachers a certain amount of vacation days, and when they take it, they have substitutes who fill in. The daycare doesn't close down completely for a month, and if they did, I definitely wouldn't want to pay for it while they were closed.

We DO pay for full weeks even when there are holidays - like they are closed Monday for Labor Day, but we still have to pay for the full week.

And fortunately, our daycare does not make us pay for summer while DH is off with the kids (he's a teacher). We pay a deposit to hold our spot until fall. They can make it work because they have school age kids who only come during the summer, so basically it's almost like another kid takes our kids' spots for that time.

 

Yes, but it's up to daycare to provide its employees with a vacation. If I have a nanny, I am the employer, and I pay for vacation. If I use a daycare center, they are the employer. They provide the vacation--without a break in service to me. You plan accordingly.

 

:/ You've just described Alexis with the resistance to all wiping. She doesn't like to wipe or be wiped when peeing. She's also often a little irritated down there, so we do it for her. We've explained that it will hurt less if she does it every time, but the struggle is ongoing. It's especially frustrating in public bathrooms when she starts complaining (loudly) that she doesn't want to be wiped becuse her "lady parts hurt!" The ped says it's a normal struggle, but we are very frustrated with it.

 

My oldest dd is 7, and she still gets a sore red front from not wiping properly. She's not getting "in the folds" and it gets red and irritated. Every time it happens we explain to her (yet again) that she has to wipe properly or she's going to get red. :gah:

 

On the vacation issue, there's enough staff there that they could easily stagger vacation and/or find substitutes instead of disrupting service. If this was a one or two person operation I would totally understand that, but there are 8-9 staff there. She said in normal years she would have set up daycamps, but this year was an exception because she just had a baby. It is virtually impossible to find an inexpensive option for 2 weeks and most day camps don't cover my kids age or are only half a day. So basically all 20 some families had to take vacation and find alternate child care for those specific 2 weeks. It was a major hassle that I had the pleasure of paying $1250 for.

The director approached me on Friday in front of the other teachers and one of the other parents and asked me what issue I had with their teacher. I said basically what I have said above and she started to defend her teacher (which is fine) without hearing what I was saying. Finally I said, whatever, let's just drop it, everything is fine because I was tired of the conversation going in circles, so she started in on me about how I have to teach my children hygiene etc. I stopped her right there and said "look, you have unreasonable expectations about this. I am willing to bet that there is not a four year old in this place who is wiping consistently and being completely hygienic about it. And you have to understand that we're not at home doing nothing with our kids, we work on stuff with them every day, and to suggest otherwise is insulting." Kris stepped in at that point too (he was watching this from the sidelines the whole time) and finally said "our issue with the teacher this morning isn't her message, it's her delivery and persistence, it's insulting". So then the director finally started giving the boys a glowing review about how well they're doing and how happy they are. I just gathered up the boys and left because I was completely out of patience at that point. It's nice that they're happy, but say something in the first place rather than just continually haranguing me about stuff they're not doing yet.

So basically, I am applying to a few other daycares, but I have heard months long wait lists for some of the better ones in our area. Twins are hard to get in; sometimes one spot will open up but two is damn near impossible. Given that the boys are happy and thriving, I might just deafen myself to them and make sure that I go in when there's lots of other parents there so they can't corner me.

In other news, I convinced Miles he should try wiping. He did so, and now he's sitting on the toilet saying "I want to wipe 20 times." And he won't let us wipe and he refuses to wash his hands without me literally dragging him to the sink. Ozzy on the other hand declared that he just won't poop anymore if he has to wipe. So this is going really well. Really glad we had to address this right now.

 

That sounds frustrating! And yes berating! My boys just started wiping, JT was the hang up and of course Jack followed suit. We always follow behind to make sure they didn't miss. Hannah uses the flush able wipes on her front and we wipe her butt.

As for vacations our daycare staggers throughout the summer and they close around Christmas time for "maintenance", like last year installing new carpet and fresh paint and such until after the new year. They give us plenty of time to find other options and we are not charged

 

Annabella was four in June and she doesn't wipe behind. And she is awful at wiping when she pees. It really is something we have to address. She starts preschool in four days! The boys were four when they were wiping and it was never an issue. For some reason, Anthony has always been the cleanest....for lack of a better word...pooper. Lol!

As for vacation, I don't think that's right. When I worked as a preschool teacher in a school that had infants up to pre-k, we never closed. We had the big holidays off, but that was it. Their reasoning was "parents had to work." So there were no closures for a week of Christmas. No closures for a two week summer break, or to clean the center thoroughly. I can't remember the terms of when going on vacation. I think you had to pay half the weekly tuition.

As far as the way you are treated., I'd high tail it out of there. However, I know that's not easy, so I understand why you are still there. I hope you can get in somewhere else, because the way they are treating you is just wrong on so many levels.

 

Personally, I would just search for a preschool. Your kids are 4. They don't have to go to daycare. And really teachers shouldn't have made u feel negative.

My kids previous preschool was bathroom independent. They had some accidents. But now at this current preschool, they do have bathroom trips. School has girls bathrooms and boys bathrooms. Even though kids do wipe their butts. But there are always teachers there to check on them. My girl can wipe herself. Teacher taught her at school. But at home, I always do it. I don't trust a 3 yrs old can do the job though. My boy said he asked the teacher to wipe his. But I don't know. However, he's always clean after bathroom # 2. Lol. So it's not so big deal. I always shower them every night if we don't bath.

Sorry for your bad experience. I hope your situation will get improved soon. But Id change school ASAP. Good luck!

 

:hug: Jen. I would be searching for a new place. Like you said it's not the message, it's the delivery.
I don't know too many 4 year olds who are competent wipers. My kids are almost 6 and if they have a real messy poop, they will do their best to get it all but there are times where me and DH have to help because they know they have not gotten it all. I would say their skills in wiping their behinds definitely improved over the past year or so but when they just turned 4, they were not that great at it.
I would just keep practicing with them, have the one who will do it 20 times do it and have the other, who refuses to try one time and then maybe work him up to more times when he's ready.

 

Our school only closes 8-10 holiday days. After 6 months, we can take 1 free vacation week. It can't be rolled over next yr.

U should check if your city has mini University. It's awesome. My kids loved it so much. But we live far away. So I transferred them to a closer school. They will go there from preachool to 8th grade. U also can find a full day preschool. There are many good calthelic preschools out there. Good luck. I know searching for school is stressful and tiring. It took me 3 months justcalling and visiting many schools before I actually picked 1. It's up to you though. Good luck!

 

I agree w/ PP that a move to another location is needed.


As for wiping-- I teach PreK 3 (3-4 yr olds) and they have to be somewhat competent wipers.They have to be mostly independent in the restroom. This is a program that has 400+ preK kids (ages 3-5). We can button buttons or snap/zip--- but can not help with wiping on a regular basis. If it is too messy-- we call home (think diarreha not just a poor wipe job). That said--- we enourage kids to wipe until the paper is clean. It is also a liability issue due to a preschool and not a daycare (we are not licensed to handle potty-training).

We do not spot-check kiddos after bathroom useage. If we smell or suspect a poor cleaning job, we will quitely approach the child and ask if they pooped and if they wiped well or need to try again. Or if it was a toot (hahaha- often that is the issue!).

At home, maybe make a visual chart of how much, when, and how long to wipe. Practice. and well- be patient.


In K-- kids get NO bathroom assistance and it is the one thing the PreK 4 teachers stress the most to have mastered -- it can take a while to master as well, so keep practicing!