Story Photos
 Wendy Sweeney, a Chicago pediatric nurse, demonstrates how to hurry to the toilet at her 'Booty Camp,' a one-day intensive potty training at Progress Center on June 23. Roger Werth / The Daily News
|
Booty Camp: Chicago nurse starts business doing one-day potty training marathons
Monday, June 30, 2008 11:42 PM PDT
By Cathy Zimmerman
Printable version
E-mail this articleDiscover what you’re good at, do it with a passion. Many move to the era’s career mantra, and Wendy Sweeney is no exception. The pediatric nurse and mother of six children under the age of 12 has made a name for herself in potty training.
She and her husband, firefighter Jim Sweeney, live in the Chicago area but occasionally travel to put on “Booty Camp,” a one-day marathon that promises to get tots out of diapers for good.
“Listen to your body!” Wendy Sweeney cajoled five little boys at Progress Center recently.
When you get that tell-tale urge, she told them, shout out:
“STOP pee! STOP poo!”
Then, “Run, run, run to the potty!’
Then, “BOMP! BOMP! Pull down your underwear!”
More directions, best left to the imagination, followed.
Pretty funny. But this is dead serious for the Progress Center parents, whose sons are all 4 or 5 years old and still in diapers.
“If he gets potty trained, it will be a dream come true,” said Hazar Eid, whose 5-year-old son, Faris, 5, took part in Booty Camp. Faris is on the autism spectrum with a disorder called apraxia, his mother said, which interrupts messages from the brain to the muscles, affecting speech and other motor tasks.
Eid searched everywhere for help with potty training before she discovered Booty Camp on the Web. She organized a fund drive to bring Sweeney, a petite, no-nonsense type who typically charges $250 for each parent-child pair for the five-hour camp.
To fly here and do the camp, Sweeney charged $4,000. Progress Center organized and coordinated the event, with Eid gathering donations from herself and other parents, the local Autism Society, Child and Adolescent Clinic and the Children’s Medical Resource.
“It was worth it,” said Eid. “We have children with special needs, and nobody’s dealing with this, not the schools, not private therapies.” She invited observers so that others might learn from Sweeney’s methods and teach it forward.
“It’s so important,” Eid said.
Yes, but who would have thought you could make a career of it?
When a friend noticed how successful Sweeney was training her own children, she started sharing sessions for other kids at her house. Someone said, “You should be getting paid for this.”
“I started offering my services, and it grew by word of mouth, moms in the area telling each other,” Sweeney said.
In early June she appeared on the Today Show, and Booty Camp has turned up in People magazine and on ABC, CBS and Chicago’s WGN.
Although she still works as a nurse, Sweeney said, “in another couple months, this will be my full-time job.”
At the sessions, she brings parents a manual and other paperwork — bright camouflage covers that say ‘Come Potty With Us” — and provides loads of junk food, juice and pop to get digestive systems rolling.
Parents bring 15 pairs of new underwear and a potty chair. Those with special needs children commit to keeping at least two weeks free after the camp day to continue the intense training at home.
She’ll teach no more than five children at a time, Sweeney said, and parents have to attend — they’re getting trained, too.
She follows up relentlessly, Sweeney said. “I’d rather hear from the parents 10 times a day, so we can tweak what’s happening,” than give up too soon.
The camp was Monday last week; by Wednesday Eid was calling Sweeney every three hours.
“She was very supportive, giving me tips,” Eid said. “She’s the only one who has a specific answer and a specific way of doing it.”
'We'll work through it'
Booty Camp is a clever name, but it’s also on target.
Sweeney bombards the children with clear commands; passes out high fives and treats for every single direction they follow, reserves the juiciest rewards and cheers for the big event, and puts all responsibility on the youngsters — including those with special needs.
Two of her own kids have hearing loss, so she knows what she’s doing (and uses sign language liberally).
“We’re going to have lots of accidents,” she told the parents. That’s why the camp is conducted on vinyl floors only and everybody’s shoes and socks come off.
“I want them to feel it when they go to the bathroom — I want them to make a mess and have to clean it up,” Sweeney said. “The more we do for them, the less they do for themselves ...
“We’re going to have lots of tantrums, because I’m going to push them. But we’ll work through it. .... I’m not the nice lady who presents you with a ribbon because you paid for it. We have to work through a ton of behavioral issues.”
The first task: to get the boys to remove their shoes and socks, take off T-shirts and diapers, and put on clean new “big-boy” underwear — by themselves.
It took time to figure out how to get pants on the right way, but Garrett Haghighi, Faris Eid and Jonathan Hensley were soon wandering around in crisp Spiderman briefs.
“Awesome, dude! High five!” Sweeney tucked M&Ms into their hands.
Any time a boy touched his potty, he had to get a sanitary wipe, clean his hands, and put the used wipe into a waste basket. By himself.
“Pick that up, sweetheart! Good job!” (“We clean up better and faster,” she told the moms, “but it’s not about us.”)
Two of the boys took longer to get with the program. Dylan Quick buried himself in his mother’s lap, unwilling to take his shoes or shirt off. A happy tyke, he tended to cry and struggle whenever Sweeney tried to get him on track.
Matty White, who came with his grandmother, Kathie Robinson, was in full-howl tantrum, hiding under a table, screaming and kicking the wall.
“Leave him,” Sweeney told Robinson; Matty should get no attention. “He’ll come out when he wants to be with us.”
After an hour of raging, he did crawl out. Through a few more meltdowns, Sweeney showed Robinson how to hold Matty from the back (don’t let him see your frustration), saying firmly, “This is not acceptable.”
Sweeney modeled how to soothe his sweaty forehead and help the sobbing boy take deep breaths. The moment she saw him respond to a command, she popped him an M&M.
“You got that because you listened. Good job, sweetheart.”
Not long after, a chastened Matty was without his shirt, shorts and shoes, meandering among the group, munching treats.
Talking it up
Booty Camp is fueled by tables bulging with Doritos, Cheetos, Goldfish, Twix, Hershey bars, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. The fridge is stocked with Capri Sun and Coke.
“Start eating, moms. They want to eat when you do.”
It’s junk, Sweeney knows, but it will motivate the boys all day, “and they’ll get so sick of it, they’ll go back to their good diets.”
What’s missing? No TV, no books, no toys.
For five hours, nothing will come between these little guys and their potty chairs.
Sweeney barked directions like a drill sergeant, always circling back to the refrain: “Listen to your body! STOP pee! STOP poo! Run-run-run .... “
“Moms, talk it up, talk to your kids,” she coached. “Don’t ask questions. If you ask, that means they have a choice.”
Sweeney also told the moms not to state their own feelings or wishes (“I need you to go potty,” for instance). “This is not about us. They need to do it for themselves.”
The moms coaxed their sons continually to check their underwear.
“Dry underpants! Good boy,” they’d say, bestowing another M&M.
When any one of the boys tried to go, Sweeney showed him how to tuck his genitals down “like a firehose,” so he wouldn’t spray all over the place.
“Take your tissue, wipe yourself. Put the tissue in here. Pull up your pants. Good job!”
Whenever someone peed all on the floor, Sweeney snatched up paper towels so he could wipe it up. He had to get out of his undies, get a clean pair, wash his hands again.
“I absolutely loved the training,” said Eid several days later, “but my son has been camping out in the kitchen from Tuesday until now. I’m going crazy.”
Eid took off a week off from managing the dental office she runs with her husband, pediatric dentist Hani Eid, so she could keep Faris on track.
“The first two days, he’s OK with cleaning up, and I’m getting mad,” Eid said. By phone, Sweeney coached her to put on her “game face.”
“I shouldn’t show Faris I’m upset,” Eid said. “After 12 hours in the kitchen, I’m not kidding, you can get mad.”
Still, she followed Sweeney’s advice and became serene.
The next day, tiring of cleaning himself up, Faris was the one who was mad.
Progress! Sweeney told Eid. That’s exactly what you want — a kid disgusted by his own messes.
Thursday, Faris went in his potty and was rewarded by being allowed to watch TV.
Proud graduates
By the end of Monday’s camp, several of the boys hit pay dirt — or more accurately, produced it.
When Garrett urinated in the plastic bowl of his potty, he got high fives and a big treat — but only after he carried the bowl to the big toilet, emptied it, cleaned it and washed his hands. Not long after, he pooped in his potty.
Amid resounding cheers, the other little boys went over and studied the turds.
“Awesome!” Sweeney crowed. “That is so cool when it’s not in your pants.”
She brought out her camera and a proud Garrett posed with his accomplishment. The photo went, where else, into the brag book Sweeney brings from Booty Camp to Booty Camp.
Some minutes later, Matty calmly urinated and had a bowel movement in his own potty.
“He ended up getting his picture on the wall,” Eid said. “He was so proud of himself.”
Robinson said “going through Booty Camp was a huge, huge stepping stone” for the boy. In the time since, “he has two accidents since, but tiny ones. That lady knew what she was doing.”
For more information on Wendy Sweeney’s potty training workshops and ideas, visit www.bootycampmom@sbcglobal.net
momto1 wrote on Jul 1, 2008 3:56 AM:
bw wrote on Jul 1, 2008 9:17 PM:
Past Month's Most Commented Stories