I thought it would never happen, but one excruciatingly tedious and frustrating week has resulted in Max being potty-trained. Hurray! I am surprised to say, I am more excited for him experiencing the pride of accomplishment than I am about cutting my diaper load in half. (Jack: watch out; you’re next.) It’s easy to think about potty-training lessening the parental chore load, but it also is a huge developmental stride forward. Max now understands how his body works and is getting more in tune with it everyday. He is growing up and join the ranks of Mama, Daddy and all other people he admires.
When you hear it only took me one week to train Max, you may be tempted to think it was easy. It was not. After a few false starts in his twos and a great amount of reluctance on his part, I finally decided to force the issue and make it happen. Here are some tips garnered from my experience. Every child is different, so these may or may not work for you.
Tips for Potty Training
1. Brace yourself for a marathon of patience.
I did not expect my life to transform into Waiting for Godot while I was waiting for Max to pee. He was hesitant to train, so I had to sit in the bathroom with him. And sit. And sit. It was terribly boring, but in order for him to relax, I needed to make it fun and not seem like a banishment. We read books, played cars, sang songs and talked about relaxing our body a lot. We spent hours in there and on the first day all I got for my trouble were a few drops. Day Two, we moved into small, steady streams. Day Three, he was done with pee accidents. On Day Five, he took over all prompting and now we can get in and out in no time flat.
2. Get a small seat
The first time we tried to train him, we bought an insert for a regular toilet. That was a mistake. It’s so high for little people, so Max was intimidated. Also, if a child needs to sit for a long time, it’s just too uncomfortable. On the advice of anther mother, I took Max to the store and let him pick the potty he wanted.
3. Don’t buy pull-ups.
I don’t know how these ever became the norm, but I think they’re a huge mistake. Not only is it a bad ecological and economical choice, but pull-ups interfere with a child learning about his body. They place an artificial intermediate step into the toilet training process. Why make this longer and more complicated?
We bought Max a lot of underwear and told him that whenever he was awake, he would be wearing them. Until he understood his bodily functions, we put a diaper on him for sleep. Those diapers came back dry within a few days. As for the underwear, we had a lot of accidents on the first two days. We didn’t scold him, but simply changed him. Those accidents clearly helped him connect his internal sensations to the need to urinate. I think he may have been a bit embarrasssed too, which is actually a good thing. It motivated him to understand the expectaion that he pee in the potty.
A few days into potty training I needed to go grocery shopping. I toyed with the idea of diapering him, just in case, but decided not to in the end. I presented potty-training to him as “the way life is now.” Any wavering for my own convienence wouldn’t be fair.
I will be using pull-ups for one specific use: an upcoming cross-country flight. I am also going to pack that seat insert to help him feel comfortable and hopefully be a bit more hygenic. I don’t want to backtrack to diapers, but the reality of airplane toilets is that they are intimidating and not always available when needed. I will tell Max that pull-ups are airplane underpants, and that is the only place we will ever use them.
4. Hunker down.
You can’t take away diapers without curbing your outings. We commited to staying home as he learned to use the potty. Although embarrassment might have been a neccesary part of a child learning, humiliation is not. This was a family event. It was a sacrifice to stay home with gorgeous weather, but one well worth it in the end. We only went one place, to a friend’s home who had a potty chair, while he was learning.
5. If you have a reluctant child, start with bribes.
This goes against my parenting philosophy in general, but I think it was wonderful to offer a reward system for using the potty. I needed to make this fun for Max to counteract his squeamishness. Creating rewards, created instant appeal. In the beginning he got truck stickers to put on a poster every time he genuinely tried to use the potty. Sometimes he sat for a half an hour with no pee, so I rewarded him for his effort. For actual pee, he got a mini M&M, a first candy. After a few days, I stopped rewarding him for trying as he had learned his readiness signals. Once he became adept at peeing, the treats were granted only for poop.
I think this worked because it was presented from the onset and a sweets are very rare around here. I felt like I was in control. He wasn’t demanding or upping the ante. It was such a dramtic departure form our usual life, that he stood up and took notice. Not having the toilet become a battleground was a priority for me, so these small bribes did the trick.
6. Use prunes to encourage bashful poopers.
I was afraid we’d hit a road block when it came to bowel movements. He was holding them back, very afraid. He also had a few really gross poop accidents in his underpants. I googled this problem and was horrified by the results. This can be a major problem for some kids. The advice that: hey, most kids are potty-trained by the time they go to college, was little comfort.
I took a three-pronged approach. I explained to Max that it was not OK to ever poop in his underpants. Poop belongs in the potty, but if he wouldn’t use the potty, he should tell me, so I could give him a diaper for his poop. I heard about a technique where a child poops on the potty and while wearing a diaper. Later, you just put the diaper in the potty and eventually you throw it out. It helps some children, but we didn’t get that far.
I knew he was holding back his BM all day, so I gave him a prune at snack time. When he asked for his diaper, I put it on him, but also explained that if he decided to poop in the potty, I would give him a hotwheel car he had begged for earlier in the day. My goal was to have one positive experience on which to build. He decided to go in the potty, and although it took him some time, he has successful to my great relief.
8. Praise and celebrate.
Every minute of this ordeal was full of lots of encouragement and celebration. Mama did have a glass of wine at the end of these days as I also needed praise and celebration. There were many times when I was mind-numbingly bored and frustrated, but I held that in. Potty training needs to be a really positive experience for a child, so parents’ feelings really don’t matter. I also wanted to phase my rewards out quickly, so the praise was important as ultimately it’ll be all he gets.
8. Experiment with privacy.
I spent some serious time on the bathroom floor entertaining, cheering and teaching Max for the first few days. He frequently called for he to hold him, and I would, whispering words of encouragement in his ear. Eventually I noticed that he was using me as a distraction, not a help, so I excused myself. It felt awful to leave him, especially when he was whining for me to hold him, but I noticed that those were the times he would actually do his business. I used excuses so he didn’t feel abandoned: I had to check on Jack or something on the stove. I came back at frequent intervals, but during my absences he invariably used the toilet.
I say to experiment with privacy, because in the beginning he needed me to hold him as he peed. It’s a delicate balance between comforting a child and holding him back.
One that is often repeated in parenting.
On to the next phase, but until then, Cheers to Max! Well-done, my boy!
Wow! Wow! and Wow again. Hooray for Max and hooray for finding the potty training process that worked for you. I am very impressed.