adventures in potty training

Potty training. The two words that filled my heart with dread. I really don’t mind the diapers and things are a lot easier when my kid keeps his potty on his bum everywhere we go. I’m happy to wait until Riley tells me he’s interested, as he shows no interest at this point.

A couple of months ago, I realized that we probably shouldn't put it off much longer. With Kendall due in March, my mobility decreasing by the week and Riley’s transition to preschool coming in July, getting him day-trained became a priority.

I checked out a few different methods and figured that I’d give one of the faster, more intense, “Cold Turkey” ones a try before taking the more gradual approach of using trainers or diapers.

I had heard good things about The Official 3-Day Method. I bought the materials and J and I selected the weekend of Dec 19^th for Potty Training Boot Camp. In a nutshell, this method starts with the child helping to “throw away” the remaining diapers and putting on regular underwear. The inevitable accidents serve to give parents the way of learning to read their child’s body cues and teach the children to be aware of their need to eliminate and to communicate/respond to the need right away. The parent keeps a close eye on their child all day long, reminding them to tell them when they need to go and whisking them away to the toilet at the first sign of needing to potty. So accidents are necessary in order to increase awareness of their body cues.

I wasn’t convinced that this method would work for Riley since the thing that made Riley such an angel baby (his laid-back, easy-going, adaptable nature) is the very thing that will frustrate me when I want him to mature and change. I could see him being a child that would adapt to having wet or dirty underwear and not be motivated to use the potty by any means – candy, stickers, excessive praise etc.

Riley's bedroom before and after Dec 19th:

Without boring you with the sordid details, suffice it to say that after 3 days, my concerns were fully realized. Riley did manage to get pee in the potty several times and get a sense of what that felt like. But starting on Day 2, he would show the sign of having to go, be brought to the potty and after a few minutes would say he’s done with nothing in the potty. Then he’d go in his pants within a few minutes. So it became clear by day 3 that he was exercising his ability to control the situation and do what HE wants, not what we want.

As I was talking to my mom about this, she mentioned that she just remembered putting my brothers and me on the potty until we put something in there. Since we are determined not to give Riley (or ourselves) the “out” of having diapers anymore, we needed to find a way to keep him uncomfortable in his accidents, without making a mess all over our house.

We were able to see that Riley was eliminating approximately every 90 minutes, so we had enough info to determine what his “potty frequency” might be. We switched to using training pants (underwear with extra padding in the crotch) with plastic pants over them to help contain the accidents. He gets the feeling of being wet or dirty without us getting the Spotbot out every day.

So we started putting him on the potty first thing in the morning, after meals, before/after naps & before bedtime. In between we put him on every 60 min or so with a several ounces of water, which serves the dual purpose of inciting him to pee as well as giving him something for future elimination. We also moved his potty chairs** to the two most comfortable rooms in the house -- the living room (his playroom) and his bedroom. He seemed to be more agreeable to using them when we moved them from the bathroom. I put a waterproof mat under each potty just in case. As long as he learns what he needs to learn, then I'm willing to keep them there until then.

It’s amazing how much less stressful potty training became after that. We put him on the potty about 12x each day and he has 1-2 accidents per day. We've found that eliminating the TV distraction seems to get him doing his business within a minute or two, so the above pic was actually taken before we changed our tactics. While we continue to remind him to tell us if he needs to go (he has hand signals as well as words he can use), he has yet to actually tell us ahead of time. So while he may be “in training” for months, he’s getting used to the idea of doing it in the potty.

He doesn’t seem to hate having his pants wet or dirty yet and I question whether or not he’s able to sense ahead of time that he needs to go. The more I read on the subject, the more I realize that this happens in every child’s unique timing. There’s neurological, biological and personality factors at work that influence timing (among other factors). I read the average age of boys is over 3 yrs old before they’re trained, so I shouldn’t feel too disappointed if he doesn’t catch on until then. He’s not influenced by peers, parents, candy or other rewards. He’ll do it when he can and he wants to.

Sort of like the idea of predestination, we’re creating an environment for him where he will eventually conclude that it’s better to keep his pants dry. He’ll think it’s his decision, but we know we had a lot to do with it!

Shelby


** We didn't get anything fancy, just a couple of basic potty chairs that were inexpensive.

This is our downstairs potty which we picked up at Target:

We got the upstairs potty on Amazon. It's also our travel potty:

This is his cushioned, collapsible potty seat insert for when we're out and about. It fits nicely into his diaper bag: