Potty Talk

A couple weeks ago, my cousin blogged a detailed play-by-play account of the first day of potty training her 21 month old, which I fully enjoyed. I'm one of those impatient moms that disregards the current parenting advice that says we should just wait until our kids are ready and they'll practically potty train themselves. I can't wait that long, so I encourage potty training as soon as I can. Somewhere on the web I found some advice dating back to the 50s that said there's a window of opportunity between 1.5 years and 2 years and I was all over that! I couldn't find the exact link I read before, but here are a couple articles with some history of potty training trends. (Although I'm not quite into the infant potty training.) Unfortunately, I didn't see that until Charlie was about 3.5 years old.

Although it was a long process with Coulson, compared with Charlie he was relatively easy to train. I was just going through some old baby calendars and I had marked that he first used the potty when he was about 1.5 years old and could say "pee potty" before he went, so we could get him to the potty in time. He was pretty well trained for #2, but we still had lots of wet accidents. For many many months, I generally kept him in underwear at home (which was really cute because he was so skinny that the underwear barely stayed on him and generally it was the only thing he would wear - we have hundreds of photos and some great videos of him from this age that I can't share because he's only wearing underwear and I don't want to post those pictures on the internet), but put him in a diaper or pull-up when we left the house. That may have hindered further progress, because once I mustered the courage to take him out in public regularly with underwear despite accidents at home, he actually did sort-of better. We still had lots of accidents, but not as many as before. And since he didn't have an #2 accidents, we just dealt with the wet accidents. He was fully trained around 2.5 years old, right around the time Charlie was born. And soon after Charlie was born, we had a special party for Coulson to celebrate his potty training. It was one of my first blog posts!

But Charlie has been a different story altogether. He started showing interest before winter last year (at about 2.5 years old) and went in the potty several times. But as winter set in, he complained of the cold toilet seat and being cold when naked from the bum down and thus he stopped being interested. I figured it would be better to wait until summer anyway when he can run around in just underwear and we can potty train that way. When we started in the summer, he initially started with good success for several weeks - he was interested and enjoyed the little rewards (stickers, m&ms). He had a very "regular" system and I always put him on the potty in the morning and he would always take care of #2 and the rest of the day we only had to worry about #1. But then suddenly he stopped trying altogether and put up a fuss when I tried to encourage him. And his regular #2 routine started changing and he was pooping at all different times of the day (gross!) Sadly disappointed, I put him back in diapers for a couple months. We tried again at the end of the summer - he showed moderate enthusiasm at first, but then he stonewalled again. Back in diapers. Although I think I put him in pull-ups to encourage use of the potty at his own desire, but he didn't really care. Through all of this, I would have kept him in underwear like I did with his brother, if it wasn't for one problem - he wasn't trained for #2. He would go in the potty if the timing was right, but, despite his initial success in the area, once he started stonewalling, he never tried to get to the potty himself for #2. And that kind of accident in underwear is NOT fun!

So here's where our story gets more interesting. Charlie is a pretty easy-going kid (he's just like me). He doesn't have a lot of power struggles with us and doesn't give us too many problems (other than standard age-appropriate issues), but apparently he has a passive-aggressive streak in him, which is also apparently just like me. Exasperated by all the false starts with potty training, I tried some different tactics. Charlie loved to chew gum. LOVED IT! It was always his favorite treat. (yes, I let him chew gum before his 3rd birthday, I don't know exactly how that happened. I think Coulson had to wait until he was 4 before I let him have gun). But when he stopped potty training, I told him gum was only for big boys who could use the potty and if he wasn't going to use the potty anymore, than he couldn't chew gum. He simply said ok and gave up his favorite treat. He would ask for gum whenever Coulson got some and I would remind him of the rule about big boys and he would be fine with that, no fussing.

That wasn't working, so I tried something new. He got to the point where he didn't like to be in a messy (#2) diaper and hated having to sit in it. If we were out and about running errands and he messed his diaper right before getting back into the car, he wouldn't want to sit in his car seat. So my response was, tough, we'll change you when we get home. When he messed at home and would ask to be changed, I would make him wait about 15-20 minutes before changing him, reminding him that he could have used the potty if he had wanted. After a couple weeks of this tactic, Charlie decided that he liked his messy diapers and then he didn't want me to change him even though Coulson and I were suffocating from the fumes emanating from his bum. Hmmm.

So then I started to make diaper changing an unpleasant experience for him. I generally avoided eye contact and talking while changing his diaper, so that he wouldn't feel like the changing time was a chance to get undivided attention from me (From the beginning, when he used the potty, I would sit on the step stool in the bathroom and read him a book, so he would get quality time when he was using the potty). Then I stopped changing him on the soft carpet and started changing him on the hard wood floor. These tactics weren't having much success. I seriously considered storing the wet wipes in the refrigerator, but I could never bring myself to actually do it.

With Charlie in preschool 3 times a week and drop off visits to the child care at the YMCA on the other days, consistent potty training was also quite difficult and time-consuming for me, so my last tactic was to wait until Christmas break when he would be out of school for a couple weeks and then we could really focus on it without so many interruptions. Happily, I can say that he has been in underwear ever since Christmas break started. It started at first with anticipating his needs and encouraging him to go to the potty before the need arose, for which he would comply, and gradually he's gotten better at going himself, but we still provide lots of reminding. Sometimes we catch him doing a crotch grab or a "potty dance" and we have to remind him to listen to his body and run to the potty. For a while, we had about one wet accident a day and that has gradually decreased to about 2-3 accidents a week. And #2 accidents are very rare, I think it's been over a month since our last one. So I don't want to claim full success, but I am very happy with the progress we have made!

Now, since I have written this blog, regression is sure to follow - that's how life works, right? (That's probably why I have been postponing this post for so long, I'm scared I'll have to eat my words) And if he doesn't regress now, I can expect some set backs in about a month or so, once baby brother joins the scene. Oh well.