Hellobee

When Hellobee community member yerpie110 posted on the boards about consulting a behaviorist regarding potty training her daughter, we reached out to her and asked if she would story with us! 

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We attempted potty training three times.

ATTEMPT #1

The first attempt was a meek, half-hearted one when my daughter was a little older than 2.5 years old. She had demonstrated some interest and successfully peed a few times, but wasn’t showing many signs of being ready. Regardless, we forged ahead; however, I spent most of her second year pregnant, then miscarried, then became pregnant again. During the first attempt, I gave up after a couple of hours because I physically struggled to carry her off and on the toilet, and she would not let dad assist her during that time.

ATTEMPT #2

The second attempt was when she was 37 months old. Baby sister had arrived two months prior, and I was hoping to have her trained before I returned to work. I printed out reward charts, we talked it up, let her help us pick reinforcers, purchased special toys just to use on the potty, and I had read all the books and felt she was ready.

Well, it was a complete disaster. She was incredibly resistant and long story short, she held her pee and poop until she had her diaper for naptime and bedtime. I became afraid that she would end up with a UTI or even worse, she would need to be brought to urgent care to be catheterized as I had heard horror stories from some friends of mine who had that happen to their children. Her longest stretch of holding occurred on day two where she went approximately 8.5 hours without urinating (she clearly did not inherit my bladder). We also became desperate and started offering her things that I did not want to make a habit of (i.e. letting her play with our iPhones or use her tablet just to get her to stay seated).

We threw the towel in at the end of day two and I felt extremely defeated. My husband believed she would train when she was ready, but I, on the other hand, became more and more certain with each passing day, that she would be the one kindergartener still in diapers.

TALKING TO A BEHAVIORIST

She did not need to be potty trained for her school program, luckily, but I shared our horrible experience with her teacher. It was at that point I learned that she sat on the potty with them fairly regularly without a fuss (the truth was, her teacher actually had told me earlier, I just didn’t register it with the newborn haze surrounding me). She didn’t actually pee, but she certainly didn’t mind sitting on the potty with them, and sometimes would even ask to do so. I was shocked, to say the least. Her teacher encouraged me to speak with the school behaviorist for some tips on how to encourage greater compliance at home.

Many public schools in America have school psychologists and a smaller number also employ behavior intervention specialists. The role of a school psychologist is broad and covers quite a large area, including conducting evaluations, writing IEPs (individualized educational plans) for children in special education, providing therapy, consulting with school staff and parents, etc. Behavior intervention specialists offer specialized services that provide an objective look at the child’s behavior and create behavioral modification plans to help the child succeed in the classroom and/or home. In theory, school psychologists can and will do similar work, but typically their time is more diversified so if they are able to share responsibilities with a fellow clinician, they absolutely will! In my district, the school psychologist within our elementary school primarily focused on the older students (grades 2nd-5th), whereas the behaviorist focused on the younger students (grades PreK-1st), with overlap occurring as needed.

I contacted the behaviorist, Lisa, and we arranged a meeting. Lisa was incredibly informative and I deeply appreciated her insight. I shared my struggles with her and also mentioned that some of my friends felt I needed to use the extinction method to potty train, which basically meant that I should pull the diapers completely, 100%, and give my daughter no other option but to either have an accident or pee in the potty. I hesitated to use this method because it just screamed POWER STRUGGLE to me.

My daughter is incredibly sweet, but oh so sassy, and can be as stubborn as well… me! My husband and I have learned to choose our battles wisely as not everything is worth the fight. I focus on avoiding power struggles when I can, and being careful about what we set as non-negotiables in our household. I strive to create the “illusion of control” for my daughter, but really, we are the ones in control (most of the time).

I desperately wanted to avoid ending up in the hospital and more than that, it just didn’t seem like the extinction method that would be effective for her. Lisa agreed and she encouraged me to “go back in order to move forward.” She explained this by asking how I first introduced the potty to my daughter. I told her I had no expectations for her to actually pee or poop, and really, I just wanted it to be fun. She replied, “Exactly.” I stared at her blankly in return. She described, “We want your daughter to establish a positive relationship with the potty, so go back and do exactly what you did in the beginning. Focus on the fun! Dump the expectations and just make it about laughter and games and special toys and silly songs and funny dances. Whatever will make going on the potty a complete blast for her.” She provided me with a huge variety of different techniques to try and emphasized that it would take some trial and error before I found what clicked for my girl.

Of course, Lisa was right. Here are some of her suggestions:

• Take her shopping and let her pick out a preferred potty seat and underwear
• Decorate the potty
• Read books, especially those related to the potty
• Blow bubbles
• Let them paint on the toilet seat cover
• Aim for cheerios, even girls
• Use blue food coloring and try to change it to green by peeing
• Play music
• Essentially, anything that my daughter would find exciting

Lisa emphasized to me that the focus was about making it fun and recreating a positive relationship between my daughter and the potty, while avoiding power struggles. If she asked to get off, let her go; I was never to physically force her to stay seated. Most importantly, she reminded me about keeping my own emotions in check.

ATTEMPT #3

I trusted Lisa and after about a week of trial and error, here’s what ended up working for us:

• My daughter didn’t care about changing the color of the water, but she loved to pick out different food coloring colors to squeeze into the bowl. This would get her onto the potty almost 100% of the time. I would always say to her, “first we pick colors, then we sit on the potty” and she almost always complied. If she didn’t, she would typically ask for more colors, which would simply be denied.
• I would sit her backwards on the seat and let her paint on the toilet seat cover.
• I put the small, child potty next to the large potty and she enjoyed filling the removable bowl with water and mixing it around.
• We read new Sofia the First books and playing with stickers.

My daughter eventually not only started to ask me to sit on the potty, she actually enjoyed it! It took approximately one month to reach that point and after two months, Lisa encouraged me to remove the diapers and actually train her. The plan was simply – diapers only when sleeping, M&Ms as pee reinforcers, and Hershey kisses as poop reinforcers. That was it. I honestly did not think my daughter was ready, and we were also coming up on the end of the school year, so I thought the timing was terrible. Lisa asked me to trust her once again as she really believed it was the right time, and so I did.

The first day was yet another day of holding and I emailed Lisa late in the evening expressing my dejection. She asked me to stick with the plan for at least the rest of the school week, and she was confident that as soon as my daughter came into contact with the reinforcer, she would make the connection. And what do you know? She peed in the potty the subsequent day. I may or may not have cried, and I swear I heard angels rejoicing in the background. And she hasn’t looked back since. My daughter was pee and poop trained, as well as nap trained, by the end of the week.

I never expected it to be this painless. She still wears a diaper for bed, but even with that, we are looking to pull it soon as she has been waking up dry for a while now. We are a few months out, with no problems and I never, in my wildest dreams, expected that potty training for my sassy, strong-willed girl could be so easy. I’ll be forever indebted to Lisa for her help!