Earlier this summer, I witnessed what I perceived as a miracle.  My daughter, who I had been attempting to potty train for seven months to no avail, started using the bathroom 100% of the time within three days.  In this post, I’m going to share what I learned in the hopes that it will be beneficial for other caregivers.

In early May, I wrote a post about my challenges with potty training.  Long story short, my daughter was fully potty trained two months before her second birthday.  This happened at a time when we embarked on buying our first home.  It took a lot of time to search for and buy a home.  She began to have accidents and eventually I put her back into a diaper because the appointments and research and paperwork and meetings and travel, not to mention renovation, took up a lot of our time.  It was six months later, in December 2014, before we had some breathing room.

I was ready to return to potty training thinking she would pick it up quite easily.  Quite the opposite, Polina would have nothing to do with the toilet.  She kicked and screamed, arched her back, did everything in her power not to use the potty.  Fortunately, for all of us, all of her number twos went into the toilet, but she peed through her underwear no matter how many times a day I changed it or talked to her about it.  She demanded to wear a diaper.  I didn’t understand it.  Why was a girl willing to use the potty in June be so averse to the potty 6 months later?  I was racking my brain trying to understand her.  Nothing seemed to work.  Potty training round 2 went on for seven months.

Separately from all of this, I decided to try out a parent-tot playgroup and happened to mention my dilemma to one of the teachers there.  To my surprise, she sent me the following three videos and offered me a 30 minute consultation.  To my greater surprise, it worked.  Here is what helped me:

1.  Figure out whether your child is ready.  Tempered with your desire to potty train is your child’s ability (which is separate from willingness) to potty train.  Figure out whether your child is able and willing, able but unwilling, unable but willing, or unable and unwilling.  If a child is not able, which could be because they are too young, haven’t physically matured to hold their bowels, or have a disability, then it can be punitive to force them to do something they will mostly likely not succeed in.

I knew my daughter was able.  She was fully potty trained for about a month before things went awry.  She would also immediately run up and tell us she made “messes” when she peed herself.  When I showed her the toilet, she would have nothing to do with it, but when I asked her “where does pee go?” she would point and say “in the potty.”  I also asked her, “Does pee go on the floor?” to which she replied a long “noo.”  Cognitively she knew where pee went, she just didn’t want to use the toilet.  Our habitual question and answer after every mess was turning into a game that only one of us found amusing.

Get a second opinion if need be, but invest time in determining whether your child is able to use the potty (or anything else you are trying to get your child to do).

2. You must be committed to potty training.  This concept seems simple enough but there is a deeper layer to it.  I thought my frustration and anxiety levels were symptoms of my commitment to potty training.  I was wrong.  Commitment means not caving in, as I had done,  when my daughter was having a tantrum on the floor.  It means being consistent and supporting her through the storm that is the tantrum.  If you’re squeamish, like I am, about hearing your child cry, you have to decide whether you want to walk through that tribulation or not.  Once you have determined that your child is able to use the potty, the question, as these next videos show, is not so much is your child ready for potty training but are you ready?

Polina had one tantrum once I implemented these suggestions.  I held my ground, and it was hard.  Previously I felt helpless sitting on the floor watching her have a tantrum so I would pick her up and take her away from the bathroom to make it stop.  After watching these videos, I kept my mind focused on the task at hand.  I didn’t fall into helplessness, but into resoluteness.  It didn’t take long for her to stop crying and we tried to use the potty again.  This time she went.

3. Take away the child toilet seat.  When the consultant advised me to do this, I was skeptical.  I didn’t think my daughter would like the feeling of her feet not touching the ground when she used the potty.  Or at least that’s how I would feel.  That’s why I bought her her own seat.  But the consultant said having another toilet provides a choice which can be stressful to a child.  If you live in a large house, too many bathrooms may be another stressor.  She suggested keeping it as simple as possible.

At this point, I was willing to try anything.  So I removed Polina’s potty from the bathroom.

4.  Ask who will go first.  This by far was the tip that changed the dynamics between me and my daughter.  The consultant advised me to begin with scheduled potty times, about every hour or so.  She advised me to walk into the bathroom with my daughter, carrying her if needed, say it was time to go potty and ask who will go first?  If your child doesn’t want to go, tell them you will go first and lead by example.

I was surprised that this girl, who had arched her back at the sight of a bathroom, volunteered to go first the very first time I asked her.  These words changed the dynamic between me and my daughter from one of confrontation to one of collaboration.  There was only one time when it didn’t work and Polina had a tantrum.  But aside from that it worked incredibly well.

5. Say goodbye to the diaper and introduce training pants.  I must admit I hadn’t even considered training pants.  I had heard and read that they were the worst thing for potty training because they essentially allowed a child to continue to pee in their pants.  But again, I had tried everything I knew and was willing to give this a shot.

I was pleasantly pleased with the training pant.  (I bought the most “natural” kind I could find in the store.)  The feel of training pants is akin to putting on underwear, and there is something psychological about not being passive and having someone change you, but pulling on an “underpant” yourself.  I could tell by Polina’s behavior, expression, and words that she recognized a change was happening.

I talked to my daughter about saying goodbye to diapers and introduced the training pant, which I called the “underpant.”  (Polina has a book about animals in underpants, which she likes very much, so I thought it would be a good word to use to imitate some of her favorite animals.)  Polina liked repeating the word “underpant,” which I thought was a good sign.  She let me put it on.  I told her she couldn’t pee in her underpant the way she could in a diaper.  I reiterated that she needed to tell me when she needed to go.

These tips worked for me better than I could have predicted.  Polina had one tantrum in three days.  It was a dramatic turnaround, considering she was having a tantrum several times a day if we even stepped inside a bathroom .  Within three days of me implementing the above, she was fully potty trained.  She even napped in her underwear.  Within a week, she was waking up dry in the mornings too most of the time.  We reused her dry training pants until I realized, why not try underwear?  And she has been in underwear full time ever since.  There were two accidents this entire summer while she was sleeping.  Earlier this summer, she woke me up telling me she had to go to the bathroom.  She rarely does these days and often goes to the bathroom by herself.

Polina has no qualms using the bathroom, although that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have her preferences in other areas.  She still has her way with things I find annoying.  For me it’s a matter of give and take and picking your battles.  I knew potty training for me was a battle worth fighting for.  Conversely, I know a woman who hasn’t introduced the potty to her one-month-shy-of-three-year-old.  She’s waiting for him to be interested.  We are shaped by our own upbringing and our relationship with our child.  The choice I made isn’t necessarily the choice you should make.

Was it these methods alone, or the culmination of my efforts over the past seven months, or the memory of using the toilet that caught up with my daughter and made potty training successful this time around?  It’s hard for me to say.  All I can say is that these tips helped me and they came at time when I was personally out of ideas and methods.  If you’re struggling with potty training, don’t be afraid to ask for help.  If I hadn’t mentioned my dilemma (because it was at the forefront of my mind most days), I wouldn’t have gotten this advice that worked for us.

Best wishes to you on your journey.

 

Potty training is one of those rites of passages everyone must master.

While some rites of passages can be questionable, the only question for this one is when.

When was the last time we really chose where to go to the bathroom?

People can survive with maladaptive patterns of behavior in a lot of areas except where to go to the bathroom. That one is a given. A must. A requirement for humans… and dogs and cats.

I began so-called “potty training” when Polina was a newborn. I used cloth diapers every day except when we went camping or stayed with my mother-in-law. Since we lived in an apartment with shared washers and dryers, I made a conscious decision not to subject my neighbors to my daughter’s bodily fluids. So we paid $100 month for a diaper delivery service.

I used cloth not only because babies in cloth diapers tend to potty train earlier than those in disposables, but because I read that the chemicals in disposables may interfere with a baby’s, particularly a girl’s, reproductive organs. I didn’t want to risk adding any disadvantage that the world already planned up its sleeve. That and the environmental impact of plastic whose half-life estimate is into the thousands of years made the decision really clear for me.

I practiced elimination communication. I made the “psss psss psss” sound when I changed her diaper to encourage her to pee and to associate that sound with peeing. I made the “ugh ugh ugh” sound to signify number 2. The few times my sounds coincided with her actions, I was ecstatic.

At 10 months, I put Polina on a real potty and made those sounds. When she went on “command,” so to speak, I was very happy.

In fact, my first sign that Polina could hear me happened on the toilet, when I said “Ugh ugh ugh” and she said “ugh ugh” back.

It was a bonding moment. In my mind we were on our way to having Polina fully potty trained by 2 years.

I remember being in a park and listening to a young boy’s observations and inquiring about how things work. It was summertime, and I noticed he was wearing diapers.

“Ha!” I scoffed to my husband later that evening. “That little boy is so intelligent, and he is still wearing diapers. If he’s capable of making intelligent conversation, he’s capable of saying when he needs to go to the bathroom.”

At my local gym, I didn’t understand why children who spoke in complete sentences still wore diapers. Polina, who followed directions but didn’t speak much, was almost fully potty trained.

At her one year check up, I confidently told my doctor Polina would be potty trained by two.

And she was.

In July 2014, one month before her second birthday, Polina began wearing underwear full-time. For the most part, it was beautiful.

“Ugh Ugh,” she would say when she needed to go potty. It happened in restaurants, in parks, at home, with company, without company. The only inconvenience was having to stop what you were doing and having to use a public bathroom. She even woke up dry in the mornings more than half the time.

I was really proud of her.

During that summer, we were planning to buy our first home. This required me to meet with real estate agents, go “house hunting” with my husband after work, interview potential bankers, and review paperwork, among other things. It was a very stressful time for me because of this added responsibility. The few times she peed in the car seat I dismissed as my fault for spending too much time in meetings and forgetting to take her to the bathroom. She had been doing so well I took her potty training for granted.

Gradually, the accidents became more frequent. I began carrying an extra pair of pants in the car. Eventually, I put her in disposables to avoid having an accident while I was in meetings. The quantity of pee increased and cloth diapers couldn’t hold the smell anymore. As much as I dislike, borderline hate disposables, they were my best option at that point.

“This is temporary,” I told myself and my husband. “When we move into the house, she is going back to wearing underwear.”

The move into the house would have to wait. We bought the house in August but didn’t move in until October because of the repairs that needed to be made. I was at the house at 6 am some mornings working until my husband came by with Polina four hours later on his way to work. It was the only way I could get work done.

Someone broke into our home in October. He/She/They took some of our tools, our mudding supplies, our ladder.

We began sleeping there that night and officially moved in not long thereafter. We had no cabinets so storing food was an issue. There were boxes everywhere that needed to be unpacked. After we moved in, it was stressful time part 2.

By that time, Polina had been wearing diapers for four months.

Finally, in December, five months after she started having accidents, I began potty training her again.

Polina would have nothing to do with the potty. She screamed as if I was putting her in an electric chair.  She flailed when I even took her into the room that contained the potty.

I tried reading to her, something she enjoyed doing before on the potty. No dice, she continued to scream. I sat beside her, held her hand, gave words of encouragement. She continued to scream and gave me the “finished” sign by rubbing her hands back and forth.   I tried stickers as a reward, the potty dance… nothing.  Sitting on the adult toilet with a child adapter didn’t work either.

This potty training is harder than anything I experienced when she was a baby.  Her screams pierced my heart.  I began to dislike going to the potty as much as she did.

Then came a “relief” period where she would take her stuffed animals with her to the bathroom and put them next to her. It would of course take time to collect her animals. Then when she finally sat on her potty, there was nothing.

There were times when we read several books on the potty together and still nothing.

I took off the diaper and put her in pants, thinking that feeling the wetness would get her to change. That didn’t work either. We went through 4-5 pants per day and I ended up doing her laundry every other day just to keep up.  I went back to using cloth diapers inside the home.

This past week, I put her on the potty, to no avail. Five minutes later, before I had a chance to put a diaper back on, she ran to me saying, “messy.” She pointed to a puddle on the kitchen floor.

“Polina!” I screamed.

Polina laughed.

“It’s not funny!”

“Not funny,” she repeated, smiling..

Fortunately, she doesn’t like the feel of poop in her diaper, so she always tells us when she has to go to the bathroom if she has to go #2.

Otherwise, when I ask her if she wants to go to the bathroom, the answer is always an immediate no.

“No pot pot,” she says insistently if I ask again.

What makes it more frustrating is that cognitively, she knows what she needs to do.

“Where does pee go?” I ask.

Polina points to the potty or the closest bathroom.

“Does pee go in your pants?”

“Noooo,” she responds.

She has been saying all of this for months yet continues to pee herself.

“No pee!” she announces when we pass her peed clothes in the dishpan I set aside in the bathroom for that purpose.

Ironically, she says the same thing after she has peed herself.

Prior to this happening, we bought four boxes of diapers in 2.5 years, mostly when we traveled and for nighttime (which we reused when she woke up dry). This past week, my husband went to buy another box. He came home with a size 5.

“27lbs +” it says on the box. There isn’t even a maximum weight anymore. After this, what’s next? Depends undergarments? .

For the first time in our 2.75 year relationship, I am disappointed in her, in a way I can only imagine with older children.  I am disappointed that she has not return to her previous potty trained behavior.  I was so emotionally vested in this one area.  It has been a battle of the wills, and she is winning.

Maybe it’s a lesson for me, not her.

I remembered a comment my sister-in-law made, that we cannot control whether a child eats, sleeps, or goes to the bathroom. That’s when I threw my hands in the air and gave up on potty training. I began putting on diapers as a routine.

Yesterday afternoon, my meditation teacher, Valya, said her daughter went through similar troubles when she had a bladder infection and couldn’t feel herself pee.

“It’s not her fault,” she said.

Oh my goodness. I had gotten so angry at times, and if this wasn’t her fault….!  My plan was to read up on that.

Later that evening, when Polina sat on the potty before bedtime (to no avail), I was in the bathroom cleaning the sink when suddenly, she ran back in, lifted her dress from behind and sat down on her potty.

She got up and I saw she peed where she was supposed to go.

I hope this story ends with her being fully potty trained.

The only question is when.

Polina turns 20 months old this weekend, and we have been potty training for several months now.

She is consistent going to the bathroom in the morning, when she also normally has to go number 2. About 95% percent of all mornings, she has a number 2 on the potty, and I am relieved because I don’t have to worry about it for the rest of the day. Yahoo. Diaper changing has become more refreshing, to say the least.

So yesterday, when Polina didn’t sit on the potty, I was disappointed. I was in the bathroom with her about 15 minutes as she played with the potty and found things to take out of baskets in our bathroom. I patiently put them back and redirected her back to the potty.

It wasn’t going anywhere.

Okay, I sighed. I knew what would happen, because it has happened so many times before.

If she poops in her diaper, it actually goes very near her peep hole. She doesn’t like me cleaning there, and to be frank, neither do I. But she can’t have poop in her crotch. So I have to wipe the stupid thing off.

Wiping with a damp paper towel, careful to get everything off, leads to her squirming and crying. It’s no fun for either of us. So I put her back on the potty, hoping she will learn to use that instead.

When she didn’t go, I wasn’t looking forward to this happening again.

“Do you have to go ‘ah ah?’” I asked periodically.

She didn’t respond.

I went about my business. I was washing dishes when suddenly I hear, “ah ah.” I see Polina by the bathroom, her arm outstretched.

“I think she has to the bathroom. She’s pointing to the bathroom,” said Pete.

“Pete, can you get her?” I asked, on emergency pilot as I hurried to wash the soap off my hands.

I got to her first and snapped one side of her diaper off with one hand.

“Aaaagghhhhh!” I cried.

A walnut sized chunk of orange poo rolled from the diaper onto my thumb.

“Aaaaaagghhhh!” I cried again. Pete looked and chuckled.

“Pete, can you take her!?”

Pete, as usual, calmly sat her on her toilet seat on top of our toilet and closed the door.

“Good girl, Polina.” I heard him say.

I, meanwhile, had enough time to roll my thumb over the toilet to drop the poo, but not enough time to wash my hands. So I waited outside the door, with my icky thumb, patiently waiting to wash my hands, because I certainly wasn’t going to use the kitchen sink for that.

“Good girl, Polina.” I heard Pete say again.

“Did she go?” I asked through the door.

“She went.”

“Is it a big one?” I asked, since she hadn’t pooped in the morning.

“Yes, it is. Do you want to see it?”

“Yeah, I do.” I said, opening the door with my clean hand.

Polina did go on the potty, and it was a big Mr. Hanky. It was so big, I’m pretty sure she was constipated in the morning when I kept asking her to go.

I washed my hands thoroughly. Polina got a sticker for using the potty. The family was happy.

The moral of the story is- discouragement is not a reason to give up hope. Maybe there is something bigger than you expected right around the corner.

Originally written April 13, 2014.