We have mastered potty training, finally. Three-feet-of-fun is three and a half years old and is now a champion underoo wearer. He didn\u2019t have much of a choice, he\u2019d outgrown public changing tables and I was tired of changing diapers. It had nothing to do with the baleful stares I used to get from the parents of potty trained angels. You know, the perfect little darlings that have been potty trained since birth with no trouble whatsoever. Okay, so I\u2019m being sarcastic, they were more like 3 months old. Nonetheless, it was really tiring to have, \u201cHe\u2019s how old?\u201d asked of me again and again when I would need to change his diaper like I was some horrible mother that was too lazy to teach him the ins and outs of the joys of using the toilet.<\/p>\n
When Three-feet was 18 months old, my husband and I couldn\u2019t go to the bathroom without him following us in and wanting to flush the toilet. So being the avid baby advice reader, and having read when a child shows interest in bathroom pastimes, go out and get a potty chair to start acclimating them to the idea, I ran out and got him a potty chair. I\u2019d done my homework and had made sure it had a splash guard (you mom\u2019s of boys out there know what I\u2019m talking about) and that it had a comfy seat. <\/p>\n
Three-feet was overjoyed at the prospect of having his own big boy potty. He would sit on it for hours, fully dressed of course, and read books, sing songs, and keep us company while we were using the facilities. I thought well he\u2019s going to be a dream. I\u2019d read that boys were harder to train and I thought well obviously not my little overachiever. Then, when I was going to start trying to get him to use it, he suddenly hated it. Looking at the seat, made him cry, let alone trying to sit him on it. I didn\u2019t even bother. He wasn\u2019t even two yet and I figured it was a phase.<\/p>\n
That phase lasted a year and a half. When he passed two I tried every trick in the book to convince him to do it. I\u2019d try to bribe him with: stickers, M&M\u2019s, inexpensive dollar store toys — nothing worked. I didn\u2019t want potty training to be a battle and everything I read said it was better to wait for the child to be ready. If some expert said it, then following it doesn\u2019t make me a bad parent, just saying. <\/p>\n
When he turned three, was too long for the changing tables, and still refused to go in anything but a diaper, I was at my wits end. I tried switching to pull-ups because then he could actually feel that he was wet, more so than in diapers anyway. He still didn\u2019t care. Then one day, we were at the library for story time, I was complaining to a friend whose daughter is five months younger than Three-feet who had been potty trained forever about how Three-feet refuses to even participate. She told me how she did it. The answer was so wickedly simple that I can\u2019t even believe it\u2019s not written in any expert book I\u2019ve ever read. <\/p>\n
So now, in the spirit of a Pay It Forward, I\u2019m going to share this knowledge with you for no charge whatsoever. Isn\u2019t that nice of me?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s mind blowing. Are you ready for it? <\/p>\n
Just put your child in regular underwear and let them go potty in it.
\nYes, that\u2019s it. It\u2019s as simple as that and it totally works.<\/p>\n
Obviously, you have to be prepared for messes and all the laundry that\u2019ll entail. You\u2019ll also need to buy several pairs of \u201cbig boy or girl\u201d underwear because in the beginning you\u2019re going to go through them. I recommend letting the child pick out which kind they want so they\u2019ll have more reason to want to wear them. <\/p>\n
Here\u2019s why I think it works. Diapers and Pull-ups are designed to pull the moisture away from the child\u2019s skin to help avoid diaper rash and other uncomfortable ailments. Even the so-called training pants that turn cold or the ones that the pictures disappear when they\u2019ve gone still doesn\u2019t let the kid \u201cenjoy\u201d the full pleasure of being soaked through when they\u2019ve gone to the bathroom. Three-feet absolutely hated being wet. Hated it.<\/p>\n
The first day I put him in underwear, I didn\u2019t bug him about going at all. He picked out which pair of \u201cbig boy\u201d underwear he wanted to wear. I explained to him that he was a big boy now and that he wasn\u2019t going to wear diapers anymore. I told him he needed to tell Mommy when he had to go potty and we\u2019d go. Three-feet is a strong-willed child and I knew the more I harassed him about going the more he was going to dig in his feet about not going. I didn\u2019t want the war. I figured he\u2019d learn soon enough. When he did potty in his underwear I would calmly explain to him that he should tell me he has to go, this method can\u2019t use yelling — you\u2019re basically setting them up to learn by error and it isn\u2019t fair to punish for that.<\/p>\n
In less than a week, he\u2019d figured out he didn\u2019t like to go potty in his underwear. Being the precocious kid he is, he begged and cried for his diapers back. So that\u2019s when I instituted the potty awards system. We went out and bought a bunch of stickers. I let him pick out all sorts of different kinds and then every time we had a successful potty trip he\u2019d get to pick out a sticker and put it on his shirt. He\u2019d be so proud of everyone he\u2019d received that he\u2019d count them and tell anyone who would listen why he had them. (Just remember to peel them off the clothes before you wash and dry. I learned that the hard way.)<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not saying we don\u2019t have an occasional accident, he\u2019s three and a half so, naturally, he gets so involved in playing he tries to hold it as long as possible and sometimes he doesn\u2019t make it to the toilet but all in all the whole process worked like a dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We have mastered potty training, finally. Three-feet-of-fun is three and a half years old and is now a champion underoo wearer. He didn\u2019t have much of a choice, he\u2019d outgrown public changing tables and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111,48,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-child-education","category-potty-training","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}