I started potty training my 3 yr old when it was closer to his 3rd birthday. The daycare he was in also did the same when he was 2.5 years old, though most of the time he only sat down for a very long time without peeing or pooping. I started introducing potty chair, letting him sitting down in the potty while reading a book, telling him that big boy pee and poo in the potty. It wasn’t really intense and I let him learned at his own pace. At first he was very excited about it. Not long after his 3rd birthday and potty training at home, he showed signs of readiness. He started to poop in the potty, there were few occasions when he successfully peed in the potty as well. I was excited! I thought it’s time to say bye bye to diapers and I immediately bought big boy’s underwear. I let him picked his own underwear, which of course he picked Thomas the train and Cars. I put on his underwear in the weekend just until his nap time. During this period, I have to admit. I let my emotion get under my skin when he had accidents. All the sudden in early Spring… Boom…. he refused to go to potty at all, not even for “number two” even though he had been doing it for about a month. It was such a big hit for me the fact that he just regressed. So for the next few weekends I used this following potty training method:
Candy as a reward.
It failed miserably, to the point that when I told him, “If you pee in the potty you’ll get candy”. And he said, “No candy!”
Present as a reward.
This didn’t work either. We didn’t open his entire birthday present. So one day I decided to show him give Thomas train set if he pee or poop in the potty. Still nothing happened.
Teddy Bear needs to go potty
.
I decided to “pretend” that Teddy Bear needed to go potty. I put Teddy Bear in his potty chair and praised him what a big boy he is hoping that this motivated my son to do the same. Still didn’t work. He even praised Teddy Bear and showed no interest of potty. Grrr… I was about to hit my limit.
The cold turkey way
One day in April after having lunch with my girlfriends, one of them told me to go straight with big boys’ underwear and let him wet himself when he had accidents. I thought it made sense. He wouldn’t feel the need to go to potty chair if he couldn’t feel the discomforts of wetting himself. I tried that on one weekend and let me tell ya…. I was about to shoot myself. I put his potty chair in the middle of kitchen where it’s connecting to our living room, put on his favorite underwear and told him Thomas doesn’t like to be peed. I made him sit in the potty every two hours while watching TV. He sat down on his potty for about 20 minutes…. nothing happened. Two minutes after I put on his underwear…. he peed!! This went on the entire weekend… Saturday and Sunday. OMG I was about to scream and hyperventilating. This is the most frustrating thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. At that time I decided to take a break for about a month for the sake of my sanity because I just couldn’t handle it. I know I’m not the most laid back person in the world. If anything, I do tend to freak out when he had accidents.
Let’s have a talk.
In early June, I received a note from his teacher when I picked him up from the daycare. She told me to start pushing the potty training again since he and a few other friends at his age will be moving to preschool in August. As we walked into the parking lot, I sat down on a bench in the playground. I said,
Me: “Can we talk? Do you like your friends? Do you still want to play with Emily, Mark, Brenda, (I named all his friends around his age whom he constantly talks about).”
Son: “Yeah, I like all my friends.”
Me: “If you like your friends and still want to play with them, you need to start pee and poop in the potty. Pretty soon all of them are moving to the Big Kids Room, and if you don’t pee and poop in the potty, you ‘ll be stuck with babies. Do you want that to happen? Do you want to say bye bye forever to all your friends?”
Son: “No I want to be with my friends”
That night I put on his big boy’s underwear and changed him back to his pull up before bedtime. It was Wednesday night. Friday night, he told me he needed to go potty and actually went!!! I was super excited! I gave him 2 skittles as a reward and kept on praising him. Here I was going through all kind of methods on this planet to potty train him, where all I needed to do was having a conversation with him. Since then there were a few accidents here and there. We also went through this “aiming” issue where he accidentally sprayed himself. Everyday he would wear something different when picking him up. We ran out of pants and my washing machine smelled like urine even after running it. There were also lots of freaking out on my part when I had to constantly clean the floor or changing his pants. I’m not perfect…. I know it.
This week was the first week that he actually wore the same outfit when I picked him up. In addition, the teacher also told me his pull up had been dry when he woke up from nap time. I kept on smiling knowing that he’s getting closer to perfecting his potty training.
Tags: parenting blog , parenting tips , tips on potty training boy , toddler boy potty train
