Moving Backwards

The last week or so have been very frustrating with Koen on many levels. He is really, really testing and trying us right now with his behavior. He had the croup issue. He is totally using toilet training as yet another way to try and push our buttons.

For about a week or two he's been calling us all the time to come up because he has to go to the bathroom (lots of times after we lay him down and then several times in the night). It's just ridiculous. He usually holds it 13 hours, so I know he can. He is totally doing it because he knows he can control us with this. So what should our approach be? We decided to only go up if he requested help twice, so we would know if he really had to go. This seemed to work well for a few nights as he would just go back to bed if we didn't come up and he wouldn't have an accident either. I totally understand if he wakes up in the middle of the night and needs to go once, we all have to do that, it's mostly the right after we lay him down stuff that bothers us, because you know he is just trying to get us to come back up, extend his lay down routine, etc. Anyways, after a few nights of seeming like we were "winning," Koen took it one step farther and started going in his pull-up and calling us after the fact (no warning that he had to go). This is really, really annoying! It's like we are back to square one. Previously, this was just a nighttime issue, but yesterday he did it in his underpants at naptime too and then called me after the fact. So frustrating! This morning he did it and so I took him downstairs and rinsed him off with cold water. He definitely didn't like that (thanks for the tip, Amie!). I'm hoping that maybe that annoying affair will make him think twice before going just to spite us. Any tips are welcome. I'm trying really hard to not let him see that this is annoying to me, but instead talk up the fact that he is a big boy now and I know he can hold it or tell me in time. So frustrating!