Herein lies the potty training story that finally has an end in sight!
Pregnant: My son has a February birth date and before he was even born, I had planned to potty train during May the year that he turned 2. I had decided on the outside and naked all weekend, 3 day miracle method. Are you laughing yet?
20-24 months old: Son seemed interested in the potty, so I bought an adorable little green potty seat and began to introduce the idea of going pee pee on the potty. And do you know what? It was successful! If by successful you mean he would typically go to pee on the potty if he was naked. So we began having a lot more naked time and I thought, “yes! By two my child will be a super advanced potty trained bad ass.” I was wrong. We started introducing underwear and were inconsistent with switching back and forth between diapers and underwear dependent upon who was watching him and what we were doing. He started having accidents, not being able to establish the difference between underwear and diapers. And then he began to refuse to use the potty! My husband and I were getting increasingly frustrated, but you know how once you get an idea in your head, nothing else will do? That was me; my husband wanted to wait and I wanted to push ahead.
25 months old: We caved, “Bring back all the diapers, forget the potty!” I was sure that we were just confusing Eli and needed to wait until we could really focus on potty training and be 100% into it.
27 months old: We were out to dinner and Eli told us that he needed to use the potty. He started waking up from bed and naps dry. He started using the toilet when we would put him on it. I thought we were there! Potty trained at last! I was wrong (again :)).
28 months old: Eli started regressing again, screaming anytime we put him on the potty.
29 months old: He turned the corner! He started saying yes to the potty, started using public toilets, started understanding bribery through m&m’s. He was dry through all sleep cycles. For the last couple weeks we have been on underwear only, and minus a two day regression, we have had no problems. I’m nervous to admit it, but we are considering ourselves potty trained!!
After hearing all that we possibly did wrong (starting too young, being inconsistent, sticking with a plan that wasn’t working) here is what I think we did right!
2) If Eli had an accident, there was no punishment, admonishment, or disappointment (at least we tried to keep those things in check). There was just a simple pee pee or poo poo go in the potty, bring him into the bathroom to have him dispose of the waste. Simple and non-threatening.
3) After we figured out that Eli held his bathroom business for an inordinately long time, we stopped asking him to go to the potty every half hour. Most potty training things say to set a timer and potty at least every hour, etc. Eli holds his urine for about 3.5-4 hours!! Asking him constantly about the potty just annoyed him and made his knee jerk reaction to the question a no instead of listening to his body. Adapt potty training to fit your child.
4) We changed up the bribery. This might not work on every kid, but with Eli, m&m’s didn’t always do the trick and I didn’t want him to expect something every time he put his cheeks to a toilet seat. It became we can go swimming once you go poo in the potty. We will finish the movie after you pee pee.
5) We were always pretty open with Eli about us going to the bathroom. It’s been a group effort and I think not making bathroom stuff a secret helped him to not have too much fear. Basically just a real life Everybody Poops book 
Clearly this was quite a giant change from the three day method I had planned. Either way we made it though to the other side now and I have washed my final round of cloth diapers… at least for this child!
blogger / apricot / 310 posts
This perspective on potty training is particularly timely for us! Our kiddo has just turned two and has shown consistent interest in using the potty for the last few months, daycare says he goes with them and wakes up from nap dry, and we’ve had success at home too. I think I’m hesitant to full out ‘trying’ though because he just became resistant to going #2 in the potty and I think starting from a place of resistance seems like a set up for failure! OH! and he is totally onto the ‘sit for ten seconds on the potty and get an M&M’ trick and has gone 3-4 times the past few nights…for said chocolate reward!