I thought I would be super mom and potty train Emma much closer to two years old, but try as I might she just didn't get it. She has had a potty chair for a while and has sat on it but never attempted to actually go. I just think she wasn't developmentally ready until recently, but that is just one of those things you don't know until you actually try. You can never really know that a child is ready until they actually go on the potty. Sure there are signs that people and doctors say to look for to determine if they are physically ready, but the emotional and intellectual readiness is just trial and error in my experience.
Last Monday I decided (through researching many many blogs, medical, and parenting websites) that I was going to go "all in" and just hope for the best. I officially stopped using diapers (although I did switch to pull-ups, more on that in a bit), bought a giant bag of M&M's, some dollar toys at target, and stickers and declared that we would begin potty training. As Brandon says "bribe early and bribe often" :). I know the jury is out on whether to reward potty training with sugar, but that's a choice I decided to make based on the knowledge of what would motivate my child. I told her that she could earn M&M's and a sticker on the calendar if she went pee on the potty, and if she got three stickers she could choose a prize from the prize box. The first few days were really, really tough for me. I get very stir-crazy if I don't get to leave the house at some point during the day, and according to all the parenting websites that talked about potty training in three days that's what we were supposed to do. The first day is supposed to be spent indoors with no diaper or anything and just putting them on the potty frequently throughout the day. Then the second and third day you can leave the house for no more than an hour, but I ended up staying in on the second day because I didn't feel comfortable bringing her out and having to deal with the mess. It's partially that I am not super patient and get easily annoyed if things don't go according to plan. So by the third day Emma had class at the library and I didn't want to miss it so I put her in a pull up to avoid having to clean any mess up. I went against the "plan" but to me it was more important to get us both out of the apartment for a bit and just stop thinking about it.
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| A prize (the necklace) and M&M's. |
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| She totally peed in these pants. Time for mommy to lay down her pride and put on a pull-up. |
We tried some excursions to the playground and walks in just pants or underwear and she did end up having an accident when we were at the park. So she had to go home soaking wet but I think some of that is necessary to feel what it's like and hopefully let the natural consequence teach the lesson. After going out a couple times like this totally stressed out I decided to not be so judgmental towards pull-ups and just give them a chance.
Once I decided that I would put her in pull-ups at night time, nap time, and any time I knew we would be leaving the house for a long time I think things got a lot easier for the both of us. Knowing that I could leave the house without having to deal with a pee-soaked child at some point put me more at ease, and I felt I could still ask her if she needed to go and really encouraged her to keep the pull-up dry. I bought ones with fun characters on them and told her not to pee on Minnie, Doc, Rapunzel, etc. Sort of crass I suppose, but it got the point across!
After going pee on the potty several times (over 40 times in almost two weeks) I decided we needed to get working on going poo in the potty. From my sister-in-laws experience, I knew that I needed to be pretty aggressive when it came to getting this to happen. My nephew took a while to get the hang of this, and what ultimately motivated him was a really cool toy car that they kept at my in-laws. I figured I would use the "really cool toy" motivator for Emma early on so that she would get comfortable going poo very quickly. And boy did it work. I got her an Anna doll and Emma was so motivated to go poo on the potty. It almost was working against me because she would refuse to get off the potty because she was trying so hard to go poo, that's how bad she wanted this doll. I can't say that the doll was it or if she just was ready to do it, but either way she got the doll two days after I bought it. Today she went on the potty twice and both times were not at home (once at a friends house and once at Target).
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| Emma wanted the doll in front of her and was sharing M&M's. Motivation!! |
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| I'm so proud of this girl for going after what she wants :) |
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| Watching Frozen with her new friend. |
My Top Tips for Potty Training
1. Bribe early and often- just make it easier on yourself and fun for the kid. Now is not the time to force them to do things the way you want.
2. Get them to go on potties outside the house- I am glad I took Emma to public restrooms right away. It made it so much easier than worrying about whether she could make it home in time.
3. Have them face the back of the toilet- this is a tip for when you're not at home with a potty chair. If she was some place public or at grandma and grandpa's I had her straddle the seat facing the back of the toilet. This gave more stability and she didn't have to think about going potty and also keeping herself from falling into the toilet.
4. Try to train pee and poo at the same time- I know this totally depends on the emotional readiness of the child, but in my experience it just makes sense. But I also had to bring out the big guns with a bribe to make it happen.
5. Use pull-ups or thick padded underwear (training pants)- again this is a "worked for me" thing but I know personally I was very against pull-ups because I thought it would just feel like a diaper. But since we were talking about going potty and really focused on keeping the pull-up dry it was a great fall back option for those times when you just can't make it to a potty in time. Many times she would be able to hold a little bit but couldn't totally wait.
6. Don't compare your kid to anyone else- this is really really hard because it can seem like you're not doing something right as a mom if your child isn't potty trained by a certain time. Every mom has a different motivation to get their child potty-trained and every child will react differently to the potty. For me I had to get her potty trained for preschool and also before the new baby. This was my particular catalyst for getting so into it. But you really do have to be ready to commit, for me having a "deadline" was what I needed to jump in feet first even though I didn't feel I was ready.
7. It's OK to cry about it, just not in front of the kid- This one is a tip I will need to remind myself of with baby number two. I cried a lot of frustrated, defeated tears over the last couple weeks. But I told myself I would never cry in front of Emma and I also tried really hard not to upset her on the potty. I wanted potty training to be a fun and enjoyable learning experience for her (hence all the prizes and candy) and so I tried really hard to keep her happy any time she was on the potty.
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