Fresh from the Trenches

I asked my friend Brandi if she would share her recent Potty Training Adventures. Here's what she has to say...

Hi! My name is Brandi. I live in Wake Forest, NC. I have a 2 year (33-month) old boy named Luke and a 12-month old daughter named Lauren. They are blessings and I am so thankful for them! Along with being blessings, they’ve brought many challenges and are teaching me things every day. Potty-training Luke was on of those challenges.

Around 26 months, my husband Eric and I started gradually talking with Luke about going potty in the toilet. From his responses we realized he wasn’t ready and we quit talking about it for a while. When he was around 28 months, though, we recognized that Luke was giving signs that he was ready for potty training. He would start squirming and dancing in place when he had to go peepee. Then he would start walking with his legs really spread out after peeing his diaper and would start complaining that he needed a new one. At that point we started using Cool Alert Pull-ups. As I would change his Pull-up, I would tell Luke that he could go peepee in the toilet now. I would also ask him if he needed to go every hour or so. After only a couple of days in Pull-ups, Luke actually said that he wanted to try. I was so excited! That day was a Friday, so I had high hopes that Luke would be potty trained by the end of the weekend. Ha! Ha! I was wrong.

Our plan was to give Luke a lot of juice to drink on Saturday when Eric was home and then convince him to sit on his Sesame Street potty seat cover every 30 minutes so he could pee without thinking about it. Luke would almost always agree to sit on the potty, but he refused to pee. He would sit there, hold it in and squirm dramatically. Then, right before he had to go he would say “Please get me down” and “I need a diaper.” As soon as we put his diaper back on he would pee.

We tried a bunch of different potty training ideas the following week hoping that Luke would actually go. We let him watch Mommy and Daddy go to the bathroom. We tried reading him books and letting him watch DVDs while he was on the toilet. We let his trains sit on the counter and watch him and cheer him on. He really liked that! We also offered him M&Ms for going peepee in the toilet. Basically, we just kept hyping it up a lot. All these things did help Luke to become more comfortable and excited about going to the bathroom. However, we still had the same result. He would make himself almost sick holding it in and then ask for a diaper. Finally, Luke told us that he wanted to go in the potty but was afraid to. That night, Eric was able to convince Luke to stay on the toilet when he was squirming by saying over and over again, “You can do it.” After Luke finally went that time, things started getting easier.

THE BIG WEEK
Now that Luke knew he could pee in the toilet, I decided to have an “Intense Week” of potty training. Having another baby to take care of, I was anxious to be done with this and felt that he was ready. I made sure I could be home all week and didn’t schedule anything. I let him wear his big boy underwear and he was so proud. This was one TOUGH week though! Luke still would hold it until the last second which required me to always be ready to run to the bathroom. I just could not convince him to sit on the toilet before he had to go so badly he couldn’t hold it anymore. If I tried to carry him to the bathroom myself, he would throw a fit. This, of course, led to a few accidents. However, Luke hated having accidents so much that after only a couple he rarely had accidents anymore. By the end of the week, Luke would say yes when we saw him squirming and asked him if he needed to go to peepee.

Because Luke was refusing to go poopy on the toilet at this time, we decided to wait a few weeks to make sure he would continue to go peepee in the toilet regularly. We found out that the process for Luke going poopy in the toilet was the same as for going peepee. He would hold it in until the last possible second, run around and squirm, and then ask to wear a diaper. This was exhausting! Eric eventually had to stay with him on the toilet for a couple of hours until he finally couldn’t hold it anymore. Even now, four months later, no matter how much we try to convince him, he still holds it until the last minute.

I have to say I’m glad potty training is over. Till the next one in a year or so…