Help me to relax.........................

[LoveMyGirls]

Dd2 has just turned 2 she has a fair idea of what to do with potty / toilet, she likes wearing pants and will sit on the potty but as soon as she needs to wee she jumps up and starts panicking (then i start panicking and probably dont help the situation, i try to stay calm whilst in my head im thinking sit down then, please don't wee on the floor!) I haven't done any potty training since my dd1 was 3 (shes now 8) I'm slightly nervous as over the years I seem to have developed a phobia of mess - I'm kind of ok if I know it can be washed off like if i get something on my hands whilst cooking its ok but have to wash it off immediately. So when she wee's on the floor I feel the need to bath her/ baby wipe her and disinfect the floor, I dont think cleaning up the mess is a problem i think its more the thought of it iyswim? Am i a freak? Will i get over it before I completely put her off? Im trying really hard not to pass my issues on but children can sense things.

I am afraid to say that accidents will be inevitable, do you think you might have slight OCD?

Yeah I know there will be and have been plenty of accidents and I do deal with mess alot which is why I need to be able to relax more I never used to be bothered about mess, I used to live in such a messy flat and never cared about mess then we moved and dp encouraged me to be tidier/ cleaner and it's gone from there really. I can't stand stickiness or grease or wee/ poo/ sick Though I deal with it all (im a childminder so really have no choice! lol) which is why i really want to deal with this better as I will soon be potty training other peoples children. (have cleaned pooh off my sofa and carpet in the past week so I do deal with this but later found myself not wanting to sit on the bit i had cleaned even though I had properly cleaned it, I made myself sit on it and told myself to stop being silly)

I do sort it out and im calm on the outside but inside I feel like I'm getting wound up and as the years have gone by it bothers me more I wish i could go back to being less bothered about dirt. I don't mind general mess like food/ crumbs or toys being out.

Perhaps it's because I never used to have anything nice and now we've moved and everything is new (carpets/ curtains/ sofa etc) It's all stain treated and wipeable so shouldn't bother me, I don't mind cleaning the mess I actually quite like cleaning.

I'm sitting here trying to work out what it is that bothers me about it, but i really don't know, i just know that when i think she will wee on the floor i get a tense feeling and find myself saying come on sit on the potty and wee (in my head thinking dont do it on the floor)
If for eg theres some jelly on the table i'll wipe it up as soon as i can before it gets transfered everywhere. Really hate it when I touch something without warning thats its sticky iyswim? (I dont mind if i know it's going to be sticky but if i don't know and it is I instantly want to wipe it off) My worst freak out point is when fizzy drinks get spilt as they are so sticky. (luckily this doesnt happen often as I don't give any children fizzy drinks apart from dd at weekends)

This morning dd1 coughed and sprayed tea all over the back of me I asked her to wipe it off (in my head was thinking get it off get it offf...) I'm a freak arent I?

Have you considered just waiting until she's older? I always say this in potty training threads, but mine were both very late and I had practically no accidents and the few I had were all on the floor of the loo because they had nearly but not quite made it! It's much easier and less stressful all round.

LMG, sounds as though it is developing into a bit of an obsession, I think it's easy to transfer anxiety about something into a need to control it or something else. Lots of people get obsessive about housework when they're stressed about something else they can't control. It's a control issue, you want everything clean and nice all the time which is not possible so you're getting stressed about it. Do you feel you lack control over other parts of your life, maybe that's why this is where you're trying to exert some control?

Life is pretty rosy if i'm honest ok so we could be richer and all those types of things but really when i look at my life, I'm healthy, young, have 2 adorable children, have a loving and supportive partner and family and lots of friends, I enjoy my life I really have nothing to moan about.

Dp jokes I have OCD but I wouldn't put it as severly as that. It's not as if i can't cope with mess I can it's just sometimes I feel myself getting more tense/ stressed about it than i would like.

Just wondered if i am the only one and if anyone has any tips on helping me to relax a bit after all it's no big deal (i know rationally it's no big deal) but I just wish on the spur of the moment it would bother me less. Iyswim?

Seeker - I'm not really activley potty training dd just yet as she is only just 2 but i'm working on getting her used to the potty and encouraging her to tell me if she wants to use it, she definatly knows what's going on as she is quite on the ball.

Clearly I'm projecting my own hangups on you, then! I don't know many mums who don't find the wee & poo difficult to deal at times, who wants to spend their day doing that? I changed 7 pooey nappies in a row yesterday aaargggghh. I got horribly tense when ds1 regressed and weed and pooed everywhere for about 7 months (back in nappies now, thus the pileup yesterday). If it were me (with your stain resistant carpets et al!) I'd say to myself 'stain resistant, stain resistant' everytime it looked as though she was going to wee cos it would make me laugh and relax a bit

I think i've worked out what it is that bothers me, its not the mess itself its the mess being transfered.
eg butter on the lid then someone picking it up and transfering it onto the fridge door, that type of thing.....

Just creating more mess, I suppose isn'it it? I can't think of anything to combat that other than calm thoughts