By Carmen Beauchesne of Funny Girl Problems
The hardest part of parenting: potty training. Well, probably not. Making sure your kids don’t do drugs and make good choices when they are teenagers is probably a lot harder. But in my life, right now, it is potty training.
Although this is my second kick at the can (well, technically third since we tried this past summer to a complete disaster), the way I approached it has changed. Of course, I know that “each child is different” (yeah, don’t care, “child-rearing expert mom”), but this is a prime example of why birth order matters.
Potty training certainly isn’t the only example of differences between raising kids (trust me, you don’t want to hear about the feeding log I kept with #1 vs feeding #2 Oreo ice cream right out of the gate), but this will be the point of documentation my boys will look back on when they fight over who I love more.
Potty training #1
Roll out the red carpet! This was a major event. I treated potty training with #1 as if there had never, in the history of ever, been anything more important. The preparation, thought, and timing of this event was mapped out in charts and Venn diagrams. I was on maternity leave at the time with #2, so I did have time on my side. I had nothing better to do than focus solely on this one particular job while I let my 5-month-old fend for himself in his ExerSaucer.
I bought books about potties for #1 to read (all Elmo-based as learning from his favorite character would obviously matter). I bought a ducky potty that set off alarms and fireworks if you peed in it. I made charts and got Elmo stickers to strategically map our progress. I also bought M&Ms and one giant sucker to be given out for the very first poop. I put more thought into this than I did my own wedding.
First step was to eliminate diapers by switching to Pull-Ups, which we would do for exactly 3 days. You know, to practice pulling our pants up and down. Then the big day arrived where we switched to undies and I praised my child for literally absolutely anything, even if it wasn’t toilet related. I mean, I didn’t want to break his spirit and have him piss on the floor out of spite.
There were bells. There were whistles. And if I could have hired a marching band to go through the neighborhood, I would have. My child covered himself with stickers and got precisely ONE M&M for pee and TWO for poop (plus that sucker, which I also captured with a picture and some forced posing). At the end of the first week, we went out in our big boy undies to Toys R Us and got an overpriced Thomas the Train to celebrate one week sans diapers. Then we repeated the whole process AGAIN for another SEVEN days.
And yes, he did wonderfully. And yes, he was fully trained (minus at night, but who are we kidding?). But looking back, it seems like a bit of overkill. I also am probably saying that because I’ll explain exactly how potty training went with #2.
Potty Training #2
I picked the one longest weekend of the year that I knew we would be at home and just went for it. And by went for it, I put undies on #2 and threw him on the potty every 30 minutes hoping he’d “get it.” There was also no way in hell I was going to ruin my Christmas holiday with potty training, either.
I used all the leftover Halloween candy as bribery and pre-bought a couple of Spiderman toys as “rewards” (there would be no Toys R Us outing for #2…sorry, kiddo). There were zero sticker charts made, and even though I still had the potty books from last time, #2 isn’t really into Elmo and could tell I was just re-using things on him once again.
I had given my sitter a few Pull-ups the week before and casually suggested she could use those instead of diapers and, you know, “throw him on the potty every now and again.” That would have to do.
When the long weekend came, I tried to make going on the potty seem super fun and had my 4-year-old tell him ALL about it, like he would take advice from someone who talks to stuffed animals. Naturally, I made him sit on the potty until something happened. I will say #1 was helpful in that he set up the iPad in the bathroom and played “Let it Go” from Frozen and told his brother to “let the pee pee go, just let it go.” After watching that scene for upwards of 30 minutes, the magic happened and #2 went in the potty! I gave him an entire box of Smarties (screw the 1 M&M bullshit) and told him he could polish off all the Halloween candy if he did it again.
He never did poop on the potty that whole weekend. I threw out 5 pairs of underwear instead and possibly caused a poop phobia. I can’t really be sure. Is my 2-year-old trained? Hell no. I had to give it an “honest” effort, meaning we spent a lot of time talking about undies and the potty and had some good cuddle time soaked in urine. Do I wish I had a full 3 weeks devoted to the potty parade and making it the center of our universe? Not really. #2 will survive and will probably be all the better for it.
The next step is transitioning from the crib to the big boy bed. Yes, I haven’t done that yet. #1 was moved the day after he turned 2. I may keep #2 in there until well past his 3rd birthday.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to take #2’s baby book out of the original packaging and write down a few things.
A version of this post was originally published on Funny Girl Problems.
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About the Author
I am a teacher in the crime fighting business and live on the Canadian prairies with my husband and two boys, a pre-schooler and a toddler. I spend my days eating salad alone at my desk dreaming of being able to go to the bathroom without having to clean it first. You can follow me on my blog www.funnygirlproblems.com and on Twitter at Twitter.com/@sadeatingsalad