After months of on again/off again potty training (if we can call it that), I think the over 3 year old has turned a corner. We’ll be saying bye bye to diapers very soon (or, as she told her father ‘I’m throwing out my diapers, daddy!’).
As we did with our son, we take the kids’ lead on potty training. It took him about 6 months, from the starting of ‘trying’ to when he really got it. She was the same.
What’s this stress free, but prolonged method? Well, there’s no real trick. We start by having the potty being available (a small one in the play room, an ones that sit on the toilet). Then every so often we’d talk about using it, how the rest of us use it (open door policies when going to the bathroom aren’t necessarily by choice as parents, but they do come in handy sometimes) and asking them if they’d like to try.
My kids would sometimes sit on the toilet or potty and nothing would happen. But they were happy to try. Stress free.
Then, we put on underwear. There’s excitement because they are new, and what ‘big people’ wear. And we test the waters. They either start to pee, and stop themselves, showing great control. Or they pee right through several times over. In those cases, we don’t push. We take a break.
My daughter had been doing that for the past couple of months. Every so often, I’d put on underwear and see if she’d tell me when she needed to go, or show interest. Instead, she would typically start to pee, not stop herself and say ‘I’m peeing”. Yes. Yes you are.
Finally, last week, I tried again, and instead of peeing, she would stop and tell me, or say ‘I have to go pee’ and off to the toilet we went.
That was it. Then, that same day, she pooped on the toilet which sends off parenting fireworks and jumps for joy and celebrations (we always said pooping would warrant a treat – it did with an ice cream trip out). Her pride shone through and my independent, stubborn girl convinced herself she was done with diapers.
And she has been. Just like that. We are still cautious when we head out for long periods of time, and she’s still in diapers at night (that always takes some extra time), but potty training for me is coming to an end.
It was stress free, even if this diaper stage seemed to last a long time, following their leads worked for us. And I couldn’t be more proud of her!
Are you in the throws of potty training? How is it going for you? How was potty training when you were doing it?
