The Joys of Potty Training

Two kids down, one to go. Two extremely different kids, two extremely different potty-training experiences. Let’s talk about what worked for us.

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My oldest showed us potty training wasn’t a walk in the park. He thought it was an interesting idea for about 3 seconds and after that there was a lot of tears and bribing. We bought one of the small potty seats and started off slow. Before a bath we would sit on the potty, say, hey that’s neat and then carry on with the night. No pressure. Then parental external pressure kicks in, as it does, with first time parents and well, we fell for it. We were being told we were being too laid back with potty training and, my goodness, he’s two – we were potty trained by 1! A side note – Are we really going to be as forgetful as our parents and grandparents? It’s kind of a scary thought.

We started enforcing the potty throughout the day. We offered one m&m for pee and two m&m’s for poo. We did potty dances, read books, made up a potty song and praised the toilet gods every time he went. Pees continued to work out but then right out of the blue the toilet turned into a scary monster that eats baby bottoms and steals your poop right out of your body. We tried to assure him that of course this wasn’t the case…but the damage was done. The more we pushed the less he pushed, if you know what I mean.

After a few days of this we were at a loss. Insert more external pressure and we were headed right for a disaster. He started to withhold his poop until he could absolutely not hold it in anymore. When he would have to finally go, he would literally freak out, terrified in tears, desperately trying to hold it in and we would be sitting there holding him, telling him to LOOK AT ME, YOU”RE GOING TO BE OKAY, WE ALL POOP. It was devastating for us all.

Finally, I said that was enough. I can literally see fear in my child’s eyes and this isn’t the way to go about this. We set up a pull up/diaper station in the bathroom and announced that poops can happen in the pull up, no issue, just do your business in the bathroom and we’ll clean you all up afterwards. He did, with no problem do his business in the pullups everyday for weeks. We questioned ourselves – are we going to have a 17-year-old going poop in his adult size pullup?

In the meantime, we read books about pooping. It Hurts When I Poop and Everyone Poops were fantastic. Then after about 4 weeks I delicately approached the situation and suggested we try on the toilet first before the pullup. To my surprise, this was met with, “okay mommy”. Que internal surprise and nonchalant walking to the bathroom to see what happens. HE POOPED IN THE TOILET!!!! As a parent, when you’re potty training your child you get outrageously PUMPED when they have a poop in the toilet…you would think they just won the Nobel prize. That was the first day to the last day of pullups. I feel taking the pressure completely off and letting him internalize the books and conversations we were having about it all allowed him to get comfortable with it on his own terms. Lesson learned, follow your parental gut.

With nighttime training we waited until diapers were dry in the morning then started to try no diapers at night with a Peapod Mat. Peapod Mats are comfortable, washable, waterproof, and come in different sizes. We own two and they are amazing, love them.

So oldest was fully potty trained by 3.5, little over. It was one heck of a rollercoaster and we were not looking forward to the next one at all.

Okay so with number two child of mine, we decided we were obviously not going to go the same route as child one. We are going to casually start the conversation, let his curiosity peak then just take it as it goes with little pressure. We talked a lot about how his big brother goes on the toilet, mom, dad, grandma, you get the picture. He found this a fun little game. We read the books and just talked a lot about how he’s getting to be a big boy now and he’ll soon be going on the toilet too.

Day one of me encouraging to sit on the toilet went way better than expected. The kid peed AND pooped and thought he was the bee’s knees – and he was! He got his m&m’s, potty dance and high fives and we just rolled with it. This lasted a day.

The next day we had an accident, which is to be expected; “oh well, we’ll clean up and try again next time”. No big deal. Then he just didn’t want to even try anymore…oh great, here we go again. “No, mama, I keep diaper on”.

This time, I let him decide. I told him okay and we went back to diapers. I took the external flack and just smiled and nodded like I learned in veteran mom school. We stayed in diapers for only a few days then he asked to take it off after a nap one day. We did, and ended up having a pee in the toilet – yay! – and a pee on the floor – boo! I just kept letting him lead the process and stayed positive.

One great thing to have handy in the bathroom is bubbles. It takes their mind off any stress and it relaxes the muscles when you blow out. I spent a lot of time sitting on the bathroom floor being excited over bubbles and more bubbles.

So, a few days go by with lots of success and a handful of accidents and he decides he doesn’t want a diaper on at nap time. Peapod Mat on and away we go with sheets on stand by. Woke up dry and went to toilet to pee. It’s like this day it just clicked for him. There was no negativity attached to it and he just decided he was ready. We kept a diaper on at bedtime at first but he literally had no accidents and was bone dry in the morning for weeks. I asked if he wanted to try no diaper at bedtime and he said yes. He stayed dry and would get up in the morning and go on the toilet. He just acted like it was just second nature, no big deal and that’s just what you do. Which it is…and that’s what we had been telling him…but I guess we just expected the power struggle again. Child two done at a little after 3.