Potty training is yet another thing on The Very Long List of Things That Absolutely Everyone Seems To Know More About Than You Do. It’s right up there with sleep training when it comes to subjects that everyone, parent or not, has some take on how to do successfully as soon after birth as possible. On both subjects, most methods hailed as foolproof are pretty much BS…unless they happen work for you.
Violet was out of diapers at three and all I did was sit her on the toilet a few times a day until something happened and then gave her some M&Ms.
After a while, she would tell me when she needed to go. More M&Ms were granted. I gradually weaned her off the candy with the promise of ‘big girl panties’. She had to wear training pants to bed for a while, but it was overall not the stressful experience I had anticipated.
With Lillian, I thought it would be even easier because there was an older sibling I figured she would try and catch up to.
I was wrong.
At two, I took it as maybe a sign of readiness that she took her diaper off before peeing on the bedroom floor, but I couldn’t help but be dismayed by the way she played in the puddle for some time before letting me know it was there.
I could get her to sit on the potty at this point. At first she loved to sit there. She would sit for a half hour and somewhere in that time, she would pee. A red circle would be imprinted on her bum when she finally stood up. She would be very proud- I would give her some Reese’s Pieces.
But then she would sit there forever. Nothing would be happening. I would try to get her to take a break, but she didn’t want to. She wanted those Reese’s Pieces, and by god, she would sit there as long as it took to earn them. Which meant I sat there too.
We would read stories. Or sing songs. SO. MANY. SONGS.
Eventually I started making up songs containing concerningly relevant teachable moments such as this household classic to the tune of “Three Blind Mice” :
“Don’t eat the cats
Don’t eat the cats
Cats are not food
Cats are not food
They’re made of fur and guts and bone
And probably wouldn’t taste very good
And it would just make a really big mess
So Don’t eat cats“
Unfortunately, all of that sitting and trying would lead to constipation. Eventually she’d get frustrated.
” Mommy! My poop is stuck in my belly.”
“Okay well let’s-”
“YELL AT IT.”
“…. hopefully it wouldn’t listen to me. I don’t want that power. Let’s just-”
“SQUEEZE MY BELLY!”
“……”
And so she slowly lost interest in her little potty. Unless we were out and the bathroom was super inconvenient to get to or we were driving, then she suddenly had complete control over all her functions and was toddler- level insistent on needing a toilet right then.
She stopped going at all at home and I had to accept that she just wasn’t quite ready. I put the potty away for a few months.
When she turned three, our diminishing budget (around $120 or so a month in diapers at this stage) and I decided it was time to try again. This time, I had to make it really exciting. The reward candy system had lost it’s allure, but Pokemon was huge with both girls so I went to Ebay and spent twenty bucks on a hundred or so Pokemon figurines and bunch of fillable Pokemon balls.
I reintroduced that potty and every time she used it, she got a Pokeball surprise (I gave some to Violet as well, for sibling balance). In less than a month, she had it down. I went back to giving her Reese’s Pieces for a while after I ran out of toys, but it worked.
Yesterday I caught her eye while she was sitting on the couch and she said, “Don’t look at me. I have a lot of poop in my whole body right now, so don’t look at me.” After a few minutes of blank staring, she got up to use the bathroom.
So…she’s pretty weird about it, but at least she does it.
My only advice for anyone looking for some, is that Reese’s will fail you– start out with the M&M’s and save yourself months of stepping on cheap plastic toys your kids have largely lost interest in.
This is based solely on my years of my own personal research and I Science good.
