Potty Training Success
Now that Robin’s had a few weeks to settle into preschool, we’re making another big potty-training push. And, thank the angels, this time it’s working. We’re at the point where we can leave him in underwear while we’re at home (though we still diaper him up if we’re making a trip out). He’s not very good about telling me when he needs to pee (though he has done it a couple of times), but if I ask him at regular intervals if he needs to use the bathroom, he’s responsive and co-operative.
Over the past week I think he’s pooped in the potty five times, pooped in a diaper once, and pooped in his pants once. This absolutely represents progress and I’m really very happy. Of his cohorts at preschool, he is the last to be potty trained, but some of the kids not much younger than him are still having “accidents” at school. I don’t think it’ll be much longer before we start sending Robin to school in underpants.
I don’t know what I did wrong. I tried to follow the advice given in the books. I don’t know if we were too inconsistent or tried to start too early or what. All I know is that the things that never worked before (like offering him a jellybean every time he successfully uses the potty) are working now, and I’m just really happy to see it clicking for him.
September 26th, 2011 at 1:57 pm
Yay! Go Robin!
I don’t know if we were too inconsistent or tried to start too early or what.
I don’t know either, but certainly advice I received was that the main cause of unsuccessful attempts is parents trying too soon. It was weird with the twins, though – once one finally got it the other got it almost straight away seemingly by copying!
September 26th, 2011 at 2:04 pm
Yeah — we’ll see if it’s easier with Davy, but my gut feeling (just from seeing how *interested* Davy is when Robin’s on the toilet) is that it’s gonna be much, much easier.
I think being at preschool, and seeing other kids use the potty, has been enormously helpful in Robin’s willingness to do the same.
September 26th, 2011 at 2:38 pm
You probably did nothing wrong. My understanding is that kids really vary with this from child to child for all kinds of reasons. The same pediatrician who told my mother that i was mentally retarded because I learned to walk before I could crawl also told her that I was abnormal because I watched my dad pee and taught myself how to use the toilet. One really wonders sometimes what exactly they teach in medical school. My mom said I would stare intently at my dad with a furrowed brow, and then when he was done I would try it (apparently the toilet seat fell on my wang a few times because I couldn’t lift the lid up all the way by myself, which of course was quite enjoyable for my teenaged parents).
I bet Davy goes lots faster just from having an older brother around doing it.
September 26th, 2011 at 3:01 pm
AH HAH HA HAH. Now I’m imagining poor little chibi!Todd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chibi_%28term%29) struggling with the toilet seat. Robin never had that kind of initiative. Actually I really get the feeling that it’s *because* he’s so sweet and eager to please that he was so resistant to potty training. From his perspective, there’s this existing system that works perfectly and he aces every time. Why would he want to switch over to a way more complicated process where failure is a very real possibility??
He seemed very *afraid* of the potty, no matter how hard we tried to make it a nice, fun thing. It’s only now that he’s willing to accept the rewards of successful potty use (LOTS of praise and hugs in addition to the jellybean) as compensating for the disappointment we can’t help but feel on some level — even though we try to hide it — when he messes his pants.
The books actually say not to use underpants until the kid is already comfortable using the potty. The thing is, though, if we hadn’t taken him out of diapers, I truly don’t know that Robin would have ever had any incentive to use the potty at all. Until, like, junior high school.
September 26th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
From my limited experience, boys just take longer. We were fortunate in that E’s preschool doesn’t require it. Their program start at 2 years-old, instead of 3 like many, and being potty trained by then, in this era, would be a challenge. The first one, the outlier, potty trained herself by 2; she has older sister. Through the course of the 2-3 yr old range class, likely bell curve shaped, each child stopped using diapers at school. Predictably, the last was a boy. He stopped using a diaper at school well into the 3-4 yr old class.
Good job! And for the record, you’re ahead of in the poop department. We’ve tried just about everything to get her to use the potty for that, and she has done it twice, but no dice. We now make her get her own diaper, but I’m thinking it’s time to pull that lifeline, but before I do that I want to run it by her doctor. She has her wellcare appt. later this week, so, yeah.
September 26th, 2011 at 3:10 pm
Thanks Amy! I’m remarkably heartened to hear that Elena is still using diapers to poop. That makes me feel that Robin isn’t lagging *quite* as far behind his contemporaries as I’d assumed. So thank you very much for sharing that, it’s really good to hear.
September 26th, 2011 at 4:13 pm
My ADHD 7 year old isn’t fully potty trained yet. I don’t normally talk about that – to protect his privacy as much as to defend myself from the hordes of people dying to tell mothers how much they fail. But I thought it would probably make you feel better if I shared, right? FWIW, my son’s psychiatrist says it is really very normal for there to be huge amount of variations on age of readiness to potty train, even for non-special-needs-kids (but ADHD kids are particularly challenged in awareness of bladder signals), and I know one otherwise-normal adult who wasn’t dry at night until his teens (OMG). I cling to that story. Everyone needs to know someone else has it worse in the potty training department, right? 🙂
September 26th, 2011 at 4:14 pm
Also, OMG, I just realised he’s only 6 and a half, not quite 7 yet. Which of us has an attention deficit again?!
September 26th, 2011 at 4:54 pm
I teared up a little reading this, I was so grateful. Is there a way to say “thank you for sharing” that doesn’t sound hipster-ironic?
September 26th, 2011 at 8:46 pm
I had cousins who were wetting the bed well past 3rd grade. I was always ashamed for them. Looking back on it now, though, I think it’s because they were being terrorized by their father, which is a whole different thing. One of my best friends who was always a vocal critic of Freud used to joke after having kids that he total gets oral, anal, genital now that he’s been through potty training three times. lol
September 26th, 2011 at 8:47 pm
To clarify, when we were all kids (around the same age) I felt shame when they would wet the bed. I wasn’t ashamed of them, just really uncomfortable with their issues for some reason (I was about 9).
September 26th, 2011 at 9:36 pm
Yay! I’m glad things are going better now.
I seriously doubt you did anything wrong. We waited to potty train Boy #1 until he was obviously, glaringly ready and it went quickly and easily — for day time situations, that is. I’m still changing sheets almost every single morning though and he’ll be seven in a matter of days. We had to force Boy #2 into it before he was ready in order to enroll him in preschool and things have gone *far* less smoothly. I would *really* have preferred to follow his cues but I felt backed into a corner and it was stressful for both of us. It sounds like you’re doing all the right things to me — Robin just is taking a little longer to be comfortable with it and that’s OK.