Potty Training and Hair Pulling

So, up until now, Rebekah has been my "easy" child. Noah challenges me every single day. He evokes the widest range of emotions in me. Enough said.

However, Rebekah has now decided to kick it into high gear too. I think I am being punished for something...

It all started back in January when Kevin and I took a four night trip to Istanbul, Turkey...alone... without the kids. It was the longest we had ever left Noah, and it was the first time we had left Rebekah. My parents had come to Geneva from Canada and they were our babysitters for the duration of our trip.

The morning after we arrived home, I went into Rebekah's room to get her up and found her covered in hair. I thought that she was losing her hair for some reason. Was she losing her "baby" hair? Up to this point she still didn't have very much hair. It was very fine and "babyish". It didn't take me long to realize that she was, in fact, pulling her own hair out! Why would she do this?!

The subsequent days involved quite a bit of hair pulling...but always just her own! I did some reading, talked to some friends [thanks Penny :-) ] and realized that this is a comfort behaviour quite common in small children. It seemed to taper off for a while and I hoped it would disappear.

Well, fast forward about five months to the present, and she is still doing it! Now it is actually becoming noticeable because her hair is starting to fill in...everywhere except the spot where she pulls it. She never pulls during the day...not anymore. She only pulls her hair when she is in bed waiting to fall asleep. I am disturbed that my little girl looks like she has a bald spot the size of a lemon on her head. It doesn't show as much if I put her hair in pig tails. It is more evident when her hair is down. So...she wears pig tails a lot.

Kevin tells me to get over it. She will outgrow it. By the time she is five, no one will ever believe that she used to pull her hair out.

My thoughts? Five is a long ways off!!

Second issue? I started introducing the idea of going on the potty to Rebekah. After all, she is now two years and 4 months old. I figured we should at least mention it! So, we went on an outing to Target. We bought the Dora potty seat, the Dora underwear, Curious George underwear and Elmo underwear, and a potty book that has a button that makes a flushing sound when you press it. What can get better than that?!

Initially, she was OK with sitting on the potty. She sat on it long enough for me to get about three photos. That was the first and the last time she has used that potty seat...and she didn't do anything when she did sit on it! Since then, her standard line when I suggest using the potty is, "No, no like it". We did manage to get the Dora underwear on her last night after dinner. She actually initiated that herself because she saw me folding the laundry. She did pee in them, only 15 minutes later....

I guess we have our work cut out for us.