You’ve done your research. You get the M&M’s, grab a few children’s books on how amazing it is to use the potty, bought the training potty and picked out underwear featuring your child’s favorite characters. You’ve got this! You are going with the 3-day-method because doesn’t that sound easy? Sometimes it is easy. Some kids just get it and they never look back. Others take their own time and make up their own method as they go.
Yep, I used the iPad to help with the process.
There is a long standing myth surrounding potty training: that once your child is potty trained, you are D.O.N.E! Done worrying about their bathroom habits, done wiping so many bottoms, done having to check their pants every hour. Well, yes but also, no. If you would have asked me for potty training advice after I went through it with my first, I would have had so much to offer but now having potty trained a second, I’ve got nothing except this list of the 5 phases of potty training…
Phase 1: Interest
Your toddler is a little over 2-years-old and is showing interest in using the potty! You think to yourself ‘wow, my kids is so smart, this is early to want to use the potty!’ So, what do you do? Naturally, you run to the nearest Target and stock up on potty training essentials. You get the pull-ups, the candy, you buy a few cute books and the underwear featuring your child’s favorite characters. You are ready!
Hold up. Interest doesn’t always equal ready. So, all the amazing potty training paraphernalia ends up collecting dust in your laundry room for a few months. But, you’ll be ready when they are.
Phase 2: Number 1 but never Number 2
So now your onto phase 2 of potty training. When your child is peeing like a champ but refuses to go number 2. Half way there. That is progress but not enough to trust them to wear underwear all day, or to leave the house, or to sleep without a diaper, or to let them out of your sight.
Phase 3: Fear of going out in Public
Phase 3. Ahh, phase 3. Fully potty trained at home but you are scared for your life to take them out the front door. The anxiety of taking a newly potty trained child out in public is REAL. What if they pee in the car? What if you they have an accident in the store? What if they poop their pants at great uncle John’s Christmas party? I mean at some point, you just have to wing it, be as prepared as possible and just go.
Phase 4: Home Free!
Potty trained! Yes. You can go out in public without being overly stressed. You still carry the extra clothes but you won’t need them! You are confident and so is your toddler. Buuuuuut, just when you think you are in the clear, your toddler is ready, fully potty trained…you pick them up from daycare and they are wearing their ‘extra’ clothes. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, friends.
Phase 5: Post-Potty Training Mess
Phase 5. It’s a big one, friends and can last for a very, very long time. This is the phase where you no longer have to carry around the full diaper bag with ALL THE THINGS. But diaper changes have just been replaced with lots of ‘Did you got potty this morning? You have to go potty before we leave’ and ‘Do you need to go potty? Why are you holding yourself? Are you sure you don’t have to go? Maybe you should try to go.’ There are now nighttime pull-ups and ‘make sure you go to the potty before bed.’ There may be no more baby wipes, but there is still plenty of wiping going on. Lots and lots of wiping.
Let’s talk about the wiping, as much as we don’t want too. You have to be there for the wiping, at least in the very beginning because they will either use wayyyy too much toilet paper, or not enough or none at all. There is no in between. You have to be there. So, now you are not changing diapers but you are monitoring the bathroom, especially when a toddler is inside.
You no longer have to stop on a long road trip to change a diaper but you will have to stop 8,000 times for your 3-year-old to use the bathroom. Of course, there will be a time when they ask to go and there is not a bathroom in sight. You are driving in-between corn fields in Timbuctoo. Then you end up faced with the emergency situation. You offer up the side of the road as an option but no, that won’t work. They may be able to hold it or they may end up peeing their pants, in their car seat. Who knows! Phase 5, it’s the worst.
Despite all of the added stress and mess, potty training is a real win! It’s another milestone met and another lesson you’ve taught your baby. So, kudos to us for raising babies and teaching the important lessons…like you don’t have to use half the roll of toilet paper when you wipe.
Mommy Diatribes
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