Potty training. More fun and frustrating times. As M turned two years old, I started looking for the signs that she might be ready to potty train. She was interested (very interested) in following us to the bathroom, she was staying dry in her diaper for a few hours at a time, and she would go off into her own corner to go number two. All these signs pointed to M being ready, but I was so hesitant to start potty training, because if M had shown us anything up to this point, it was that she was stubborn and that she would do things her way. I kept putting it off. “Oh, I’ll wait until the weather is warmer, and I can just have M run around with her diaper off.” And, “Oh, let me wait until I have a long free weekend so that I can focus all my attention on potty training.”
Soon enough, I ran out of excuses. Summer was approaching, and I was pregnant with my second child, and I was determined to have M out of diapers before my second child arrived. And don’t they say that sometimes your first child regresses after you have another child? What if after the new baby came, M wanted to stay in diapers all the time?!
As for my strategy, I thought confidently, come on, I’m a pediatrician, I don’t need a book to tell me how to potty train my child! My daughter was showing signs of readiness, so it wouldn’t be so bad! We’re going to take a free long weekend, get that girl in underwear and be done with it.
Overly idealistic once again. I had decided to use a free weekend at home to put M in underwear, set a timer for 15 minutes and that I would take her to the bathroom at that interval. A 15 minute interval was a little short, but I was not about to miss an opportunity to have M pee on the toilet! I explained to M that when the timer went off, we would sit on the toilet to pee. “Okay!” she exclaimed. The timer rang, and we ran to the bathroom, and I sat M on the toilet. I looked at her expectantly. She looked at me expectantly. Nothing. We stepped off and went back to playing. The timer was reset, and each time it rang, M ran with glee to the toilet and sat, looking at me expectantly and nothing would happen. Eventually, while she was watching TV, I glanced over and realized she was sitting in a puddle. Neither of us had noticed! I gasped, but I tried my best not to show my disappointment. I changed M to a new pair of underwear remained steadfast with my 15 minute intervals.
You can imagine how the rest of the weekend went. The timer went off at regular intervals, and it turned into a game of running to the bathroom, sitting on the toilet without success, back to playing, and she would pee anywhere but the toilet. I tried to catch her a few times when she started to pee and ran with her to the bathroom, but all that happened was a trail was left behind us. This weekend was not going as planned.
During the work week, it was harder for me to have time to race her to the bathroom. Her preschool was good at offering the potty regularly. It was good for M to see other older girls, who were potty trained, going to the bathroom. She would take her seat, but without much success there either.
For those few accidental times that M happened to pee on the toilet, genuine celebration ensued. We made a potty dance and sang and danced. M loved it, and demanded the potty song and dance every time she went to the bathroom – wait, who was training who? Apparently, however, my song and dance were not enough of a reward to get her to consistently use the bathroom.
The weekends returned, and we tried going to bathroom at regular intervals again. We ran back and forth each time the timer went off, nothing happened in the bathroom, and every time, in the middle of playing, M would pee on the floor and not care. Or, after she realized she peed on the floor, she proudly told me “I peed!”, not understanding that the goal was for her to go on the toilet. Each day, after going through 4 or 5 pairs of underwear, I would change her back to her pull ups and finish out the day.
I finally decided I needed to give her a break. I was only stressing myself out, and the new baby was coming soon. After the new baby was born, we became preoccupied with the baby, so I really didn’t push potty training with M. We still tried her in underwear, but we didn’t enforce it.
Then one day, when M was in her underwear, we sat her on the toilet. She said to me, “I am not going to pee in my underwear anymore!” and M proceeded to pee in the toilet!! I jumped up in excitement and did an enthusiastic potty song and dance! After that, M stayed true to her word. She rarely had daytime accidents after that. We did the potty dance every time for awhile, until mama got tired and decided it was time to move on. It took me some time to finally get rid of pull ups at nighttime, but that was more because of me, not M. She was dry several nights of the week, but I didn’t want to risk those nights of wetting the bed.
I was so determined to potty train M before the baby arrived, and while I jumped on physical cues for readiness, I didn’t pay attention to the lack of mental cues for readiness. M had not yet made the connection that pee goes in the toilet. She didn’t care if her underwear was dry or not. It was not important to her that she actually did anything on the toilet. When she decided that day to pee on the toilet (no longer being stubborn? Or mental preparedness?), she was much more effective afterwards at staying dry. These days, when she has to go to the bathroom, she still runs to the bathroom, and I run after her making sure she does not pee in her underwear. Then I realized I did this to her, making her feel like she has to rush to the bathroom when really, now she can hold it. At least there are no more requests for the potty dance.
