Adventures in Potty Training » don't eat the paint

Did you know you were going to talk about poop as much as you do before you became a parent?

Even having been a teacher and discussed poop with parents at pick up time many many times, I am still shocked by how often my husband and I find ourselves talking about it while eating dinner-  gross eh?

Our son is just about 3 and has been flirting with potty training for AGES.  At 18 months he would go potty for “Cheesus” which was his speak for Jesus. Now we are regular church goers but that was a little extreme! He started liking this little wood carving of Jesus my husband bought during a less than religious trip to Rio before we even met. For whatever reason my little man took to it and one exasperated day I said ” Want to show Jesus how you go potty?” and it worked.  Do what works!

So even though 18 months was way early for most to potty train, I was following his cues. His cues sadly went from peeing for Jesus to enjoying his soft cloth diapers for every peepee again. No biggie I expected this.

From 18 months to 2 years there was nada- we didn’t push but every so often we’d offer. He did wow and amaze people at Christmas after he turned 2 for a week , then my performing monkey stopped getting the hoots, hollers and adoration of family far away and my laundry load increased again.

In the summer he was showing promising signs - staying dry during naps, going naked without peeing up a storm… but we had a crazy travel schedule, if we didn’t have guests at home we were on the road.  But know what he was staying dry, and going potty ! He even went potty at an international border crossing - oh the pride! Mommy wasn’t ready to ditch the diapers yet though.

See both you and they need to be ready… how much do you love your carpet?

Then the biggest sign of all: DRY ALL NIGHT.

I knew I needed to get some gumption it was time to really get this boy into undies all the time and deal with the dribbles and accidents. He was ready.

And he was.

He is now the proud owner and wearer of many cute pairs of undies, and all his pants sag- his diaper was clearly keeping them up.

We have had our fair share of touching poop while it’s exiting the body ( we told him if he touched, he’s not be allowed to flush the toilet and voila poop touching stopped),  accidents , and still the phrase ” Are you pooping?” is said very very often. Usually followed by me scooping him up and getting him to the potty before anything makes it’s way out.

So whether you give your child M&Ms , stickers or high fives for going on the potty trust me when i say they will not go to college in pull ups. They may give you a few or many grey hairs while they get there … but really it’s about when THEY are ready.

Now if only you got an email notification when they were.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 2:24 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.