Potty Training: A Waste of Time
Published by admin under Pandemonium on January 27, 2010We first started potty training our oldest when she was eighteen months old because she met all the recommended milestones for doing so. She had fewer dirty diapers, regular bowl movements, and going as far as taking off her own dirty diaper when it was soiled. We were like all parents; excited our child would soon be out of diapers. Our excitement soon turned into disappointment and frustration.
We tried EVERYTHING. We made a big deal about getting a potty chair and “big girl” pants. We introduced her to the potty and sat her on it regularly. Occasionally she would go, but then she started to revolt against the potty. She HATED the little potty chair and wouldn’t go anywhere near it. Fortunately the potty chair came with a removable seat to set inside the toilet seat. We tried that and she became interested again. That however was short lived. We never made her sit there long, but encouraged her to go sit there regularly. All the while remaining Happy and Positive on the outside, but on the inside feeling like we’d never get her out of diapers.
A YEAR later I realized while changing a dirty diaper that this was insane & not going anywhere. I figured maybe she wasn’t going to the bathroom because there was no incentive. That was when we took some other parents advice by making a reward chart and giving her stickers every time she’d go potty. We thought “hmmm, maybe the stickers aren’t enough motivation for her to go” when we didn’t see any signs of improvement.Then we bought some mini M&M’s for rewards. Not even the power of Chocolate was enough persuasion for her to go potty on the toilet!
She was only four months shy of turning three and we made a decision to even stop pushing the whole potty thing. We came to this decision after having a talk with her. We asked her questions like “why don’t you want to go potty on the toilet”. She’d reply “I don’t want to”, and we’d ask, “but doesn’t pooping in your pants bother you” and she’d say no. How do you get a child who understands and is comprehending the situation, but just doesn’t want to go to the toilet to do her business? You don’t. They have to want to.
Family and friends said “You can’t just give up then she’ll never learn to use the potty”. To that we replied “Yeah, you’re right” with our fingers crossed behind our back. We stopped taking her to the bathroom regularly ever 2 to 3 hours. We stopped obsessively asking her if she had to go potty. We changed her diaper without negative comments. We simply would say “Oh, looks like you had an accident. That’s ok. Everyone has accidents. Next time try to make it to the toilet”. We said this for 3 1/2 months without any change wondering if maybe our family and friends were right.
A few weeks before her third birthday she contracted the Flu virus and had experienced terrible diarrhea as one of the symptoms. I felt so miserable for her. She was getting a terrible rash from going to the bathroom all the time, and she was genuinely just sick of going potty all the time in her pants. It was as if she woke up one morning deciding that she was going to go in her diaper anymore. When she thought she was about to have a spell of diarrhea she’d rush to the bathroom and take off her own diaper and sit on the toilet. I tried not to get excited. She soon recovered from being sick, but was continuing to go to the potty all by herself. We were so proud. We praised her every time she went, and we still do. I don’t want to jinx it, but I think it’s safe to say she’s potty trained. She still has a few accidents here and there, but 98% of the time she goes to the potty.
Please do not think I’m advocating getting your child sick in order to disgust them to the point of becoming toilet trained. That is NOT what I’m saying. What I’m saying is she had to WANT to do it. No amount of showing her how it’s done or rewarding her was going to get her to do it. We were wasting our time. She was going to go when she was ready. All we could do was show her how it’s done, and wait for her to decide she was going to do it. Or maybe my bigger point in all this is that all children are different (just like adults) and you have to find out what works for them and doing nothing is what worked for us. Hopefully this will help someone going through toilet training with no success just like us.
Vera use to do that hiding thing too hehe. Good Luck with your potty training. It sounds like Johnny's getting the hang of it :).
Johnny does the same thing. we started training him a couple months ago. we started with lots of praise, then gave stickers, then gave gummy fruit snacks if he peed in the potty. We even got him to poop in the potty a couple times. He usually gets really excited when he goes, but it’s getting him on the potty that is the problem. We’ve tried both his little potty and the regular toilet. His grandma even works with him too when he stays over there. I even tried a day of only putting underwear on him, but that didn’t work at all. It seems like the only time he wants to go on his own is if one of us says we have to use the potty and he will usually come in the bathroom with one of us and then want to go too. I’m not trying to force him too much though.I will ask him all throughout the day if he needs to go, but he almost always says "no" and you can always tell when he is going poop, but he will freak out if you try removing him from his "hiding spot" lol
I'm not too worried yet since he is still pretty young and i figure he will eventually want to go on his own. Good luck with your potty training. It sounds like something just clicked and she is more comfortable using the potty now. Congrats!
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