Potty Training Your Child

I can't really say I've potty trained a kid. Yet. I'm working on it. But I have attempted to potty train two toddlers. My own daughter, and a little boy I once nannied. So I can fairly say I've drawn some conclusions. I have gained something I've never had before: great respect for the people out there who have potty trained children. At this point, I'm surprised that there are so many adults out there who are able to take themselves to the bathroom. How do they manage to get from diapers to toilet? I am searching for the key, but haven't found it.

To my great relief, I've heard other moms share their equal struggles with this issue of parenting. So I know it's not just my technique, or my kid. It's just the way it goes. Or doesn't go (ha, ha). There are a myriad of ways in which to potty train, and an equal number of children with their individual responses to those ways. There is no science that will help a parent know in the beginning which technique will work wonders with their unique child. Sometimes it happens like a miracle. And then those parents publish books about how to do miracle potty training for every child in America. And people read the book and try the technique and either succeed or fail, depending on various factors regarding the kid and parent and lifestyle and experience. My point is, I once thought training a toddler to use the toilet depended on a clear system that guided the kid to quit using her diaper and start using the potty forevermore. Now I realize that it is more about being in tune with your child and her abilities and her response to your method, and training each child is an individual learning process that takes TIME and a staggering degree of repetition.. You introduce your kid to the potty using whatever method you feel is best for yourself and her. She will respond in some way. You go from there. But guess what? Another time, she may give you a different response. And you have to follow her responses and guide her to the ultimate goal (never wetting her pants again) at the same time. The next thing you know, it was a year ago that you started training, and you've taken several insanity-induced breaks from the process, and she still won't tell you when she needs to go. Toilet training requires a massive amount of patience. How long can you stand to sit on the uncomfortable edge of a bathtub, your hindquarters in slow agony, your kid threatening to throw a weeping, sobbing fit, and calmly try to encourage her to relax and focus on a foreign concept like "try to go peepee"? How many times can you do that in a day? And every day after that until she can take herself to the bathroom? And even when she learns to approach using the potty calmly and willingly, taking her there so she can go in it is totally on your shoulders until she decides to take over. Whenever that is.

Potty training initially starts with all of the responsibility on the parent. You decide when it's time to go potty. Over and over and over again. Before the child can ever become potty trained, the parent must become "training trained." Meaning, the parent has to learn to think throughout the day about the bathroom needs of the child in training. It's a mental skill that comes with time and after messy mental slip-ups. It's much easier to bear this learning process if you have hard floors throughout your house so cleaning up after your forgotten potty trainee is easiest. Eventually you set a timer to go off every hour to remind you to take your kid to the potty. Then one day you realize you have your own mental timer that prods you, "How long has it been since little Suzy last peed? I'd better take her before she goes on the floor." You quit setting the timer because you now have the skills necessary to remember to take your child to the potty throughout the day.

I don't know how to get your kid to actually go in the potty. My two experiences came with that included automatically. Maybe letting them go naked and realize what went on down there is what did it. Maybe watching them to notice when they were trying to poop and escorting them to the potty to do it helped them catch on. Tip: if you get your kid to poop in the potty, try to get him to wait a few minutes on the potty because he may pee soon after. Another good tip: each time your child has an accident, sit him on the potty immediately; eventually he will put two and two together; he may even stop peeing in the middle of his accident so he can finish it on the potty.

Now how do you get your kid to continue using the potty once she's learned what to do there? For us, Cinderella panties didn't help. No amount of messing them up has encouraged her to be faithful to the potty. A little green and blue stool to use to climb up to the potty which she picked out herself helped, but just for two days and then she was back to not wanting to go. I haven't tried any kind of reward. After all, if life is about rewards, nothing about using the toilet is. I haven't used reward as a parenting technique in any other area so far, so I haven't felt compelled to do it here. But the road stretches out ahead of me still, so who knows what resources I'll try in the future?

I am very glad I'm not the only mom on the face of the earth. When a mother of two very candidly told me that she has given up repeatedly on potty training her second son I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I have done that too. I have given up so extensively that I've gone from bragging "my daughter goes through one diaper a day" to going back to buying size 4 diapers in bulk. I've gone from a highly trained instinct about when to take my daughter to the potty, to setting the timer again because I'm out of practice and forget to take her. I've washed 5 pairs of soiled panties a day over and over again until I've just gone back to diapers. My resolve grows and diminishes between an indulgent break from training and weeks of initiating and enforcing every visit to the potty for my daughter.

I get really angry about the potty training programs that swear if you follow certain steps your kid will be trained overnight, or in a three-day weekend. As some friends of mine who tried a three-day weekend put their failure: "All I accomplished was missing a day of work and getting pee all over the house." How awful it must feel to be in the shoes of parents like that after their three days of potty-training-efforts. You get set up for such high expectations of yourself and your kid. And whose fault is it if it doesn't work? Either you did something wrong, or your kid is hopeless. Or, let's give everyone a break and just say it didn't work and, when you get your motivation back, try something else. It's okay if what you try doesn't work. It's okay to try it again, or try something else. It's okay if it takes a long time to potty train. It's okay if you spend the next year wracking your brain for something else to try to get past this milestone. Your kid has been trained to use his diaper. He's done it all his life-ignored his body and let you take care of it. And when you start potty training him, he still does that. Just hang in there and keep motivating and explaining in any way you think is effective (but also be respectful and encouraging), until he gets it, whenever that is.

You hear the stories. "My grandpa potty trained himself when he was only nine months old." By now, I'd sit on the edge of my seat if someone were to tell me how Grandpa managed this, in explicit detail. I've talked with my daughter, my husband, and my friends so thoroughly about potty training that I am unblushing during discussions about such private goings on. I never dreamed I would have to be so explicit about anatomy, sensations, the nature of poop and pee, the reasons for going in the potty, how to get the stuff to come out, and how to keep it in until you reach the potty. But I've figured out that the more my daughter understands, the more capable she is in many areas. I'm as verbal with her as possible, and she absorbs every instruction I give her with a cute little frown and eyes deep with consideration. Meanwhile I've learned to be as frank and unembarrassed as possible so that she doesn't get the idea that going potty is something unpleasant to be avoided. And I've learned to talk with friends in an encouraging and upfront way, because I know that what they are heading into when they begin potty training is a long, drawn-out parent's bad dream. Eventually it becomes part of your life and you just accept it. Just like you accepted diapers. Frankly, I'd prefer to change diapers than insist nicely and positively that my unwilling child go to the potty several times a day.

After all the negative, realistic things I've had to say about potty training, it is important to acknowledge the true miracle incidences of potty training, because they do happen and are a bright spot for some lucky few in the otherwise difficult trial that parenting is for all of us. I don't know why heaven opens up and smiles on those few. I don't know why their child is such an angel of the toilet and the rest of them are so tediously demanding. It's just one of the many nuances of individuality among children. My cousin was two years old, and the day my aunt started potty training her, she just happened to be standing over a stack of newspapers discarded on the floor and peed (convenient, isn't it?), and was so horrified at the messy experience of wetting herself that she used the toilet from there on after. My aunt had done nothing more than remove her diaper and explain that my cousin would be learning to use the potty. My cousin put everything together in a flash, and had such an immediate aversion to her one unpleasant experience that she took the responsibility to never repeat it.

My child, on the other hand, has had any number of potty training efforts and motivations. By now, I've simply decided to talk to her all day about using the potty so that hopefully she will learn how constant is the need to attend to this little matter, and not take no for an answer when I decide she needs to go. I've decided I get no more breaks. My goal is that when I use up the diapers and training pants we have now, she will be out of them except for a diaper to wear to bed and when we leave the house. I will commit myself to taking her to the bathroom at other people's houses and at public places. We've been through this long enough that she simply needs to realize that going to the bathroom is a constant issue in life. That means that at present it is a constant issue for me. I hope very much that she will take over the responsibility for me before too much longer. Because I am tired of this. But I've decided attitude has nothing to do with it. Mine or hers. We all have to go, and the potty is where we go, and she'll get that eventually just like we all do. And I'll do it for her until then.

I guess some people who read this would say that my daughter just isn't ready to use the potty. But I disagree. I'm not sure I even believe in the concept of being "ready" to use the toilet. I do believe, however, in adjusting your efforts to your child's response. My daughter will pee beautifully if you put her on the potty. It's like she's always known what she's supposed to do there and how to make it happen. She's genuinely pleased and excited by my praise when she goes. It's just that if you ask her if she needs to go, she will always say no. If given a choice, she will always choose not to go potty. If she has an accident, she usually acts like nothing happened. And she never announces a need or desire to go potty. She has this perplexing combination of perfect ability, undying disinterest, and blissful ignorance of her own urges that is just taking time and deliberation to sort out.

My reason for writing this article is simply to encourage parents out there who are facing potty training. It's different with each kid. In some cases, not much work is necessary to reach the desired goal. In most cases, an astonishing amount of work and time bears miniscule results. Just sit yourself down next to the potty and take a deep breath and prepare yourself to patiently endure however long it's going to take to get your child potty trained. Think of the parents out there who have twins or triplets or more to train. Be glad you don't work in a daycare. (If you do work in a daycare, recognize that you are a veteran of the field and share your advice.) Talk with your friends and family who have experience with potty training and then feel your way along. It's really no different than all other parenting matters: you choose the path that seems best for you and your child, and unearth some hidden ability to endure, and work with your kid to find your way to your goal. That's the life of a parent, before, during, and