This post has been difficult to write because on the one hand, I’m not entirely sure this method has worked for us, but on the other hand, Crumb understands the concept and is completely out of diapers. We started the three day potty training method almost two weeks ago and after a couple of successful days, Crumb has started having lots of accidents. Is it a regression? A need to control the situation? Does he truly not get it? I have no idea. I’m trying desperately to leave emotion out of my responses to when he pees or poops in his underwear, but it is becoming increasingly frustrating. It helps to hear stories of how boys take longer than girls and that not every child will get it right away. The three day method lays the ground work for potty training but it can still be a long process.
Thankfully Mr. Cookie and I agree that it has been worth it to get the ball rolling, but I am getting ahead of myself. First, a little backstory. Crumb is 2.5 and turning 3 at the end of July. He will be starting a two-day a week preschool program in September and one of their requirements is that the children be potty-trained. We’ve had a potty chair in our bathroom (this one) since Crumb was 18 months old and in the last couple of months he’d gone pee in it quite a few times but with zero consistency. We knew that potty training could drag on for another half a year or more so we decided to go all-in. I did some quick research online and decided on the three day method. Mr. Cookie and I are fans of “rip the band-aid off quickly” parenting techniques so this fast-paced potty training seemed right up our alley. Crumb was finally showing signs of readiness (dry diapers, telling us he had pooped) and we had an opportunity coming up with both of us home for a long period of time. Mr. Cookie’s parents were visiting us from Scotland for almost three weeks and Mr. Cookie was off work for most of the time.
Prepping for the Big Day:
We talked about potty training A LOT with Crumb. In the months before, we gave away his changing pad to my brother and his wife for their new baby and we switched his crib to a toddler bed. We pointed out anything and everything that made him a big boy and explained how big boys go pee and poop in the potty.
We purchased toys and treats. We had fruit snacks, m&m’s, and Paw Patrol toys in place as rewards and established with him how he could achieve them. We originally had a sticker chart but it fizzled out so we knew we had to go with more enticing items.
We bought more underwear. We have a total of 11 pairs of underwear (Thomas the Train and Paw Patrol), but if you don’t do laundry daily or almost daily I’d recommend closer to 30 pairs.
We got on the same page. Since I had my in-laws visiting I wanted to make sure everyone had similar expectations of how the three days were going to go.
These are the rules that we followed:
- Never ask your child if they have to go potty (they will say no!) but instead ask them if their underwear is still dry.
- Put them on the potty frequently. I don’t even remember what we did the first day but eventually we put a timer on our phone and Crumb would run to the bathroom as soon as it went off.
- Don’t shame them after they have an accident, but say “Oops, pee/poo goes in the potty.”
- Stay in the house for three days. If you’ve read my most recent post, you probably know that this rule was the hardest one for me. Thankfully I was able to go to the grocery stores a couple times because as long as my husband or myself were home we felt like that was enough consistency.
- Let your child be naked as much as possible. We did a mix of underwear and naked time but we had more success when Crumb was naked so I do recommend it.
- Roll up your rugs or stay on the non-carpeted areas. This one didn’t work for us because almost our entire house is carpet and we couldn’t go outside because it rained all three days. Amazingly, he never pooped directly on the carpet and the pee cleaned up easily.
Day One:
Crumb was grumpy about giving his diapers away but otherwise agreeable to put on his Paw Patrol underwear. He spent most of the morning peeing a little in his underwear and then stopping and having us put him on the potty to finish up. He loved the novelty of having Gran and Papa come to the bathroom too and they were a big help when it came to watching Chip.
Crumb peed a TON that day but we also kept refilling his water bottle like they suggest (we used flavored water instead of juice). I thought for sure he was going to poop in his pull-up at nap time but he woke up completely dry! The back and forth of sitting on the potty was draining me by that afternoon. Since Crumb usually poops 1-3 times a day I started to worry about constipation.
Day Two:
We started the day with lots of pee on the floor and lots of hiding behind the couch. But at 11 AM he had his first poop in the potty! Boy, were we excited! I guess it can be common for kids to poop less often once they are out of diapers. Crumb started resisting the constant back and forth to the potty on day two but thankfully Mr. Cookie came up with the great idea to have Crumb race Daddy to the bathroom and that proved really successful.
Day Three:
This day was awful for me. I sent Mr. Cookie and his parents to the MOA to go shopping so they could do something more fun than potty training and the boys were crazy with energy while it was just me in the house. Crumb had two major accidents all over the carpet in the span of 20 minutes and I wanted to cry by the time they got home. It felt like this was never going to work.
Day Four:
Something clicked and Crumb ran to the bathroom to pee every time he needed to go for almost the full day! Mr. Cookie was at work, and I had a doctor’s appointment so my MIL and FIL were in charge for a couple of hours. While they were changing Chip’s diaper Crumb ran to his potty to poop all by himself. It was such a wonderful surprise to come home and hear about.
Day four also brought Crumb’s first outings in underwear. We took the boys to a nearby park after lunch and to Target later in the day. We were gone about an hour each time and Crumb never had an accident but he did have one immediately after we got home from Target. I was still very impressed. It finally felt like this potty training thing was working.
Where We Are Now:
Our biggest hurdles seem to be that Crumb does not want to leave his toys unattended near his little brother to go to the bathroom and he does not give a care in the world about walking around in soiled or wet clothing. Crumb is doing OK with peeing in the potty but he almost exclusively poops in his underwear now and we aren’t sure what happened. It’s still very new to him and I think the transition has been exhausting for all involved. Mr. Cookie is home for a few more days and I’m really hoping that by the time he’s back at work, Crumb is telling us when he has to go to the bathroom.
All this said, there have been quite a few good things to come out of the three day potty training method. Crumb can hold his pee longer, and he’s able to run to the bathroom when he has “the feeling” and go in his potty. He is happy to wear underwear out of the house and he can pee in public restrooms. And most bizarrely Crumb seems to have learned how to hold his urine during nap and night time. We do put him in pull-ups while he is sleeping because that is a different skill but he almost always wakes up dry.
This post is getting ridiculously long so I will end it now but I want to do another update in a few weeks to share his potty training progress, assuming there actually is some progress. Fingers crossed!!
How did you potty train your LO? Did you do a similar method or something totally different? How old was your child?
blogger / apricot / 482 posts
We tried the three-day method and it was largely a disaster for us. Lion is also 2.5, turning 3 in August. He is potty trained now (with limited accidents), but it was a LONG process. I’m planning to do a potty-training post, too, but I think one of the problems we had with the three-day method was that our daycare only allows kids to be in underwear if they’re accident-free for two weeks.
guest
I’ve heard great things about the approach in the Oh Crap potty training book. It’s what we’re planning to do. It’s similar to what you’ve done and she’s addressed some of the problems too. It’s a quick, quite entertaining read! She’s an occupational therapist who’s potty trained thousands. Good luck!
pear / 1622 posts
My son is turning 3 at the end of August and we are potty training now. He’s peeing in the potty but pooping overnight in his diaper. The 3 days all day at home were long but then I was so nervous as to how everything would go at daycare the next day – it’s been fine. Is your little guy watching the Daniel Tiger episode about potty training? My son likes that and Elmo’s potty time. We also play music and give him a toy to play with sometimes and that helps.
blogger / apricot / 250 posts
We are just starting to get into potty training (Max is almost 2.5) at home. Daycare has been working on potty training since he was 2, but we haven’t done much at home yet. The 3 day method sounds very interesting, I’m going to have to read up on it and try it!
guest
My best advice is don’t push it, follow the lead of the child and support them but don’t make it a power struggle. My now 6 year old decided she was done with diapers around 26 months. After about 2 weeks of a TON of laundry and hand-wringing on my part, she was completely done with diapers (day and night). My son, who is 2.5 shows some interest but not a lot. We are not planning to do any forced training with him until after age 3. He was in a daycare until about 18 months and was successfully using the potty there so I know that he can do it. And I suspect your son will do just fine at the preschool even if he’s not using the potty at home consistently. We had a friend who pushed her kid to use the potty and they ended up dealing with years (!!!) of constipation issues after that. It may or may not be causal, but it scared me out of forcing the potty on my more reluctant son.
blogger / nectarine / 2043 posts
I agree with @Moxy, take the kiddo’s lead. I stressed about this big time because for my daughter to move up to the 3 year old classroom, she had to be mostly potty trained, and we were two months out from that happening and she had zero interest in the potty. She would go when we guided her, but the 3 day method was a disaster for us, and she didn’t respond to rewards, etc. We were 3 weeks out from her 3rd birthday (it was Mother’s Day, I remember it because the coincidence was hilarious), and she asked for underwear out of the blue and that was it, she was ready. It took a couple months for her to get the idea of “I have to go” rather than us guiding her to go regularly, but she had to opt into it. And after all that, we didn’t go completely diaper free until just a few months ago (a few months before her 4th birthday) because she refused to poop in the potty, even though she was fully trained otherwise and would ask for a diaper to poop. We finally broke through that after we got her the Daniel Tiger Stop and Go Potty app, where she could sit on the potty and play the game, and it kept her on the potty long enough that she would poop. After a couple months of that, she now goes completely comfortably without the games. It’s frustrating, but following their pace is key IMHO.
pear / 1622 posts
@Mrs. Carrot: I didn’t know about the DT app – I will have to check that out – thank you!
pomelo / 5573 posts
My son basically potty trained himself, which was very weird. We’d had a potty in the bathroom for about a year and every so often we’d ask him if he wanted to sit on it – he was amenable but never actually peed in it. Then one day a few months before he turned 3 he told me he had to poo, I asked him if he wanted to use the potty, he said ok, and he pooped in the potty. Basically from then on he would pee in his diaper and poo in the potty (at home. Daycare was all diapers). After that we started asking him if he had to pee and having him sit on the potty to try to pee every few hours, and before long he was also telling us when he had to pee. The last big hurdle was using the potty at daycare – he was fully trained at home but not at all at school – but they finally convinced him to start sitting on the potty there and before long his teachers told me they thought he was ready for underwear. I wasn’t actually thrilled about it – I kind of liked the security of diapers and not needing to know where the closest bathroom was at all times! But it’s been a few months and while he occasionally has accidents, usually when he’s playing outside and too busy having fun to realize he has to pee, he’s a full time potty-using kid. He still wears pull-ups at night but they’re almost always dry in the morning.
I’m aware how lucky we are – we’ll see if #2 is as easy to train as #1 was!
blogger / persimmon / 1225 posts
@Mrs. Dolphin: Oh that would make it tough with daycare rules. Curious to read your post, we are still in the trenches of this. He gets it when he’s naked and at home, but he seems to think underwear is the same as a diaper, gah!
@Christina: Thanks for the tip, I will look into that book!
blogger / persimmon / 1225 posts
@autumnleaves: Yes, he loves to sing the Daniel Tiger potty song, “Stop and go right away.” And he tells us he’s not going to go in his underwear but he hates to stop playing. Good luck with your little guy too!
blogger / persimmon / 1225 posts
@Mrs. Ice Cream: Good luck! The 3 day method is supposed to work if your child is really ready. I wanted to get going on it because of preschool but now I’m wondering if I should have waited longer. Being a parent is so much second-guessing haha.
blogger / persimmon / 1225 posts
@Mrs. Carrot: Totally agree on going their own speed! Luckily Crumb is very reward driven but I have definitely stopped stressing about it. He is still learning and still wearing underwear but having frequent accidents, especially poop. And other times he does so well! It’s tricky and definitely taking longer than 3 days but we’re gonna go his pace. Thanks for the comment!
blogger / persimmon / 1225 posts
@erinbaderin: That’s awesome he sort of led the process! wishing you luck with number 2 when that time comes!