Stress-Free Potty Training for Toddlers
I am going to give advice here that is probably not going to be popular or welcome, especially if you are looking for tips on how to successfully get your one year old to ditch the diapers to quickly potty train your two year old. Let me start by saying, I have potty trained four and a half children and through that experience, I have come to a firm conclusion about it all.
With child #1, I was determined to get the glory of the early potty training badge. He was doing great, until this was subsequently interrupted by 1. A housing renovation which required using the neighbors bathroom every time we needed to go, and 2. Me being waylaid with sickness from baby #3. My elaborate plan was dismantled until he was finally mostly potty trained just before turning three – which was when my third baby was born, which added more setbacks and delays.
Now, if you’ve never potty trained a child, you need to understand that potty training setbacks and delays are not the same as setbacks and delays to shipments or business plans, which involve no feces. Every time there is a setback, you are cleaning up poop or pee. Pee soaked beds. Pee soaked clothes. Pee soaked car seats. Pee soaked hard-to-clean couch. Poop filled pants. Poop contaminated high chairs. Poop that fell through the shorts onto the floor and was tracked through the house. Etc.
You get the picture. You endure it all with the sense that you are slowly but surely gaining ground, and at last, the job is done. HOWEVER. The aroma of every room and rug in your house is “eau du poop”.
Baby number two, a girl. She potty trained pretty easily, but not without the permanent destruction of at least one rug. Rugs are not the potty trainers friend. If you insist on taking the hard way, at least preemptively throw away all rugs.
Baby number three. living in a very fun housing situation which involved us being upstairs and the bathroom being outside, downstairs. The options were having a toddler potty stinking the house with fresh poop until I dumped it, or running him up and down those stairs. I did my best.
Baby number four, I was wiser. She was also the smartest of the bunch. One day I took off her diaper, gave her underwear, and applauded tremendously when she made the connection to go on the potty. She basically potty trained herself, although she needed assistance to go, being only eighteen months. And then baby number five was born. I was bedridden for about a month after losing a tremendous amount of blood in the birth, and it was virtually impossible for me to get her to the bathroom. Cue the pee soaked rugs.
Now, maybe you are reading this and thinking, I would never do that, why didn’t she try XYZ, etc. all I can say is, for me, knowing my own strengths and weakness and human limitations, I decided that having my house stink of urine and poop to escape the stigma of having a three year old in diapers was simply not worth it. The amount of money I spent on pull ups, potty training pants, detergent, and rugs cancelled out whatever I saved on diapers.
When baby #5 turned 2, I did nothing about potty training. When he reached 2.5, I began to speak about being potty trained in a happy, cheerful way, but I did nothing to implement it. We were in the process of moving and I had absolutely no intention or desire to try to make it through airbnbs and the 1500 mile road trip without diapers. He turned 3. We moved. He stayed in diapers. I waited all the way until he was almost 3 1/2, and then put underwear on him. I explained that if he pooped, he would ruin the new firetruck underwear and they would need to be thrown away because I was not going to be washing anymore poop. He had one accident and then made the connection.
The moral of the story is, don’t let the pressure from others or from your own self box you into many months of trying to potty train your child, at the expense of your time, energy, laundry, and rugs.