Our daughter is now 3 years old and our 2nd child is due in 7 weeks. We hoped that our daughter would be potty trained before the baby came for ease and honestly, to have a break in diaper changing before starting all over. So how did it actually happen that she was trained in February without us bending over backwards, pushing or bribing her with candy and such? Well, read on.
Last fall my husband had some books from the library on potty training. Each book was a different philosophy; potty train your child in 2 weeks, or let him/her run around naked and every 20 min. put him/her on the toilet, or when it is time to sit on the toilet make your child sit there until they do something no matter how long it takes, bribe with M & M's. This all sounded a bit absurd to me. I really didn't honestly have the motivation to spend every minute for 2 weeks on potty training. I don't have a problem with the running around naked thing, but not sure how much I would remember to get her to the bathroom every 20 minutes. Sit your child on the toilet until they do something seems a bit mean to me and I never, ever liked the idea of bribing. I have been teaching for 14 years and never used extrinsic motivators with my students as I never believed in them so why would I do it with my daughter.
So how did this happen so easily without any fights, pushing, breakdowns? At my daughter's 2 year checkup, a year ago, her Dr. and I were talking and she suggested a couple of things. First, when she does sit on the toilet and go to the bathroom don't make a huge deal out of it just say, "Did that feel good to pee in the toilet?" The other idea was to buy big girl underwear and let her see it often as a motivator. So we started with the first idea. Our daughter started experimenting with sitting on the toilet to pee last summer and we never made a big deal about it. We would just ask, "Did that feel good?" This continued for many months. As we got into the fall we realized she never wanted to sit on the toilet for #2 but inconsistently would for #1. We were in a good routine for a while having her sit on the toilet every time before nap and bedtime. Then we let that go a bit. Many times she didn't have interest or said she didn't want to sit on the toilet so we didn't push her. In the middle of winter, her school where she goes 2 days a week, started putting sticker charts up and gave us one...so we used it. I know, extrinsic rewards, she loves stickers, but it was done inconsistently and she didn't seem to care much so again, we didn't push it. Then I decided to buy some underwear in December. I took her to the store and let her pick out her own underwear. She was very excited and would look at it, put it on her dolls and ask to wear it. I would tell her, when you pee and poop in the toilet you can wear it. This went on for a few months. I was hoping that would motivate her but she just didn't want to sit on the toilet, so time went by.
Finally, one day in the beginning of February I picked her up from school and as we were driving home she asked, "Can I put on some underwear?" I thought, why not, what is the worst that can happen? She can have an accident. Oh well. So we got home and we put on underwear. That evening she ran to the toilet saying she had to pee. That was it. From that day forward she wore underwear everyday. Have we had some accidents, of course but she is really good at knowing when she has to go. Now that she wears underwear and pees in the toilet, the next step was to poop. She had NO INTEREST in that. We tried to time her schedule and when we thought we had it down and would have her sit on the toilet, nothing came out. When did it come out? At nap time (still wears a pull up when sleeping) She was very scared to poop in the toilet. We would let her watch us, we would tell her when we had to go and say that it felt good after. But still no interest. In late Feb. we went to Arizona to see some family and I noticed she started getting constipated. That was my fear b/c I knew she was holding it in when she had her underwear on. When we returned home I thought I would see how the next few days would go and then if she was constipated make the call to the dr. Well, when we got home from the airport, she was playing and all of a sudden she yelled, "I have to poop" and ran to the toilet. My husband and I looked at each other and thought o.k. Well, guess what? She did it and that was it. From then on it wasn't an issue.
We couldn't believe how easy this was and are very thrilled we have a break for a couple of months before baby #2 comes. As you consider how you are going to potty train really think about what works best for your family. I have heard people say when children are ready to do it they will so why should we push them. Yes, it would make our lives easier and we get tired of changing diapers but not pushing is worth avoiding all the power struggles that can come with it. If you are someone who uses extrinsic motivators and it works, great, but how do you eliminate those?
I have only done this once but I won't do anything differently for the 2nd child. Our daughter still wears pull ups when she sleeps. Something we are not going to worry about until the time comes. When her pull ups stay dry for a while then maybe we will move forward but until then, no rush and no pushing!
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