Potty Training
Two words that make me cringe. Two words that will be the death of me. My daughter was a piece of cake. At 18 months, she started potty training herself so there was barely any effort on my part. At that time, I didn’t understand the struggles other moms would talk about, I didn’t get what was so difficult about it. Enter my son. At three and a half years old, he has successfully resisted every tactic I’ve tried and I just want to give up.
Tactic #1
We started with a reward system. Bought him a new dinosaur that he could open if he went on the potty “like a big boy”… A few dinosaurs later (and about $100 invested in these stupid dinosaurs) he figured out that he just needed to go on the potty once to get it, but would go right back to diapers. Then I tried a reward chart. His next dinosaur sat in the box on the counter and he got a sticker every day that he went on the potty. He got about a week into it and told me to send his velociraptor back to the mail guy to give back to the store. I even bought him a Potty Watch! He figured out how to silence the watch as he looked up at me with his big, brown eyes and said, “Let’s skip it this time!”
Tactic #2
I had to figure something else out so I started disciplining him every time he pooped in his diaper. He KNOWS when he’s doing it. He finds a nice quiet spot and squats down on one knee. And if he’s interrupted, he’ll let you know what he’s doing. I also tried a mixture of rewards and punishments, “If you go on the potty you get candy and a sticker. If you go in your diaper you get a spanking.” NOTHING. HAS. WORKED. Even new underwear with his favorite characters on them.
Tactic #3
A lot of mom’s have told me they did the “run around naked method” and BOOM… their kid was potty trained in 2-3 days. I figured, what do I have to lose? I fixed up a spot in the kitchen with his portable potty, a blanket to sit on and activities for him to do. He seemed excited about it. And he WOULD jump up and sit on his potty to pee. When I put a diaper on him for nap time, he immediately found a spot to squat and poo in his diaper before he went to his room to sleep.
Tactic #4
We made the decision to start taking his toys away from him every time he would go in his diaper or pull-up or underwear. We eventually had a collection of dinosaurs sitting on our kitchen counter. He would have to pick out and surrend one each time he chose not to go on the potty. He would run over and say goodnight to them… Almost as if it was funny to him that they were sitting up there. Until my husband took a big bag and stuffed them all in it as my son’s eyes got big. I totally lied and said we were giving them away to a little boy who goes on the potty. He lost it. His tiny little heart was so crushed he just started sobbing. Annndddd… Now I have a bag of dinosaurs in my closet!
There Is No Victory
To just pile on top of all of that, my husband suggested I ask his aunt to take off a few days of work to try potty training him herself… and all I heard was that I’m not doing good enough. I just don’t know what else to try with this kid. And I feel like I’m completely failing as a mom this week. Potty training is rough.