Toilet Training: The Neverending Story

This post is all about toilet training, so I’ve put it behind the jump to protect the delicate sensibilities of my non-parent readers. 

We’d had a couple kid potties in our bathrooms for about a year, but we started potty-training Ruby in earnest in early August. I waited and waited to start until I was certain she was physically ready, meaning that she was aware of what peeing and pooping felt like and could tell us when it was happening. I also wanted Ruby to be motivated, and that motivation ended up coming in the form of some cute undies that Aunt Ni sent to her.

Starting in the summer was great, because I could do a couple proof-of-concept exercises outside in the backyard. I let her run around and play naked, and told her to use the potty (brought outside) when she needed to pee. To my surprise, she actually did, several times, so we embarked on the journey.

You can read two newly unlocked entries about the early days here and here.

I haven’t written anything since because the arc of the story is not yet visible to me. I don’t know if we’ve got months to go or are just about done. A couple times I’ve started to feel like we were wrapping it up, only to have her regress with more accidents. Every time this happened, I initially reacted with disappointment and frustration, followed by a new idea for a punishment or reward system. Below I’ll tell you what ended up working so far, but I’m honestly not sure if it’s really these things, or just the passage of time and practice.

THINGS THAT WORKED

1. Allow diapers for pooping. Our first big hurdle was, after initially pooping in the potty well, Ruby regressed for no apparent reason and took to pooping in her undies. That was an awful mess to handle. We got Ruby over the hump by telling her that when she had to poop, she could choose to use the potty, or to ask us to put on a diaper (but that pooping in undies was NOT OKAY). This solved the undie pooping by allowing her some control and choice over when to use the potty.

2. Rewarding poop. Next we had to motivate her to poop in the potty. We had a hundred OtterPops in the freezer left over from our summer party, so we decided that she could have half an OtterPop every time she pooped in the potty. This worked perfectly. Months later, poop is still not an issue, and she’s still eating about one full OtterPop a day. I’m not thrilled about the sugary intake, but they’re fairly small and it’s worth it.

3. Low pressure. At first, when Ruby began having more accidents, we increased our toilet reminders. We really leaned on her to go in the bathroom and “try” regularly. Honestly, we got pretty annoying, and it didn’t work at all. If anything, it made things worse because she wanted to defy us (being two years old).  Eventually, I read somewhere that kids have to “own” the process themselves. We told Ruby that it was up to her now, and backed way off. Now all I do is a very occasional reminder if I think she’s forgotten, but I don’t push, and accept it if her answer is “no.” And she’s become very good about going on her own.

4. Incremental + daily rewards. The next problem we faced was that, while she went to the potty when needed, she often didn’t make it on time and would pee a bit in her undies first. Nothing we said really made her care about the problem. After some trial and error, we now have a two-tier system. First, if her undies are absolutely dry when she pees in the potty, she can have a (rubber/ink) stamp anywhere on her body she wants. Second, if she’s in the same pair of undies all day long, she earns a “special treat” just before bedtime (at the moment the special treat is a piece of her Halloween candy). Notice that the second reward is aimed more at larger accidents, because if she had a small pee spot that didn’t require her undies to be changed, she wouldn’t be disqualified from that night’s special treat. She just wouldn’t earn the stamp.

I’ll admit that I’ve been pretty inconsistent with the stamp reward. It was so effective at first that she got in the habit of usually being dry, and now she often forgets to ask for the stamp. If she asks, I’ll get it, but otherwise don’t bother.

When I started this journey, I dreaded it and aimed to make it as quick as possible. And I have to say the dread part wasn’t wrong. Toilet training sucks. It’s messy, time-consuming, and very frustrating. Where I was wrong was in hoping for a quick process. Like learning any skill, or forming any habit, toilet training is something that takes unavoidable time and practice. It took me months to accept that accidents weren’t usually a deliberate choice, or a moral failing (on either my part or Ruby’s). All a parent can do is provide some motivation, and then sit back and wait for improvement (while calmly giving feedback and doing extra laundry).