We Failed at Potty Training, Round One

We Failed at Potty Training, Round One

I decided yesterday that since my son and I were both under the weather and staying home for a few days, we may as well start potty training. After all, he's going to be three in September, and his two best friends were potty trained in two days a piece. Why not?

Because of my son's rather stubborn nature (and based on previous experimentation), I knew he wouldn't sit on the potty just because I asked. I produced a jelly bean machine and showed my son how he could put a penny in it and get jelly beans after sitting on the potty for two minutes. I set the timer so that he would know exactly what it took to earn the jelly beans.

He was super excited over the idea of getting those jelly beans. He wanted to sit on the potty right away, and over and over again, in order to get a few more. After two attempts in a row, I told him that we would come back in 30 minutes and try again. I fitted him with some terrific looking Thomas the Train underpants and we went off to play.

After a few trips to the potty, he came out of the bathroom and peed on the floor. "I peeing!" he shouted. I came with towels and disinfectant and wet wipes and clean underwear, and we talked calmly and pleasantly about trying to go in the potty. This was repeated several times throughout the day.

At naptime I put on his diaper, and had him wear it to his doctor's visit that afternoon. When he came home, the diaper came off, but he refused to sit on the potty. I waited an hour and tried again, and he resisted with finesse, even to the point of doing a wet noodle impersonation on the floor. My husband was about to insist, but I thought that was the wrong way to go. Instead we bathed him and put him in his diaper for the night. The rest of the evening was unpleasant - hopped up on his self-imposed lack-of-nap combined with a jelly bean sugar high, he careened around the house and pitched a fit at his early bedtime.

We awoke today to try again. Well, one of us did. Unfortunately, the one of us that needed to be on board with this project wasn't. I took off his diaper at 9 AM (Daddy didn't attempt potty training while I was still in bed) and I got him to sit on the potty then. After that, my son launched into full rejection of the potty training concept. He refused to sit on the potty. He didn't care about the jelly beans, other candy, or any kind of bribe I could offer him (I actually asked him what would make it worth his while to try to pee in the potty. He said "A new Murdoch," which is one of the Thomas trains. I actually told him I'd buy him one if he peed in the potty, but I guess he didn't believe me. I would have, though. I was that desparate).

My parents were over during this debacle. My mom was entertaining my son and my dad worked on a project in my house while I was writing (I'm a lucky woman, I know!). They too tried to encourage trips to the potty. Both my mom and my dad got the boy to sit on the toilet once, but of course he never peed. Meanwhile, between trips he was crossing his legs, and hopping back and forth trying not to pee. By lunchtime, I could hear him starting to cry in the bathroom. I came in with a late breaking idea to try to get him to pee on cereal floating in the toilet, but it was too little, too late. He then walked out of the bathroom, peed all over the floor, and started hysterically crying. My kid doesn't cry much. I felt awful.

We tried to help him understand that it was OK that he had the accident on the floor, but really, I think it was the whole event that was upsetting to him, not just that part. He is simply too stubborn to be tricked, begged, or rewarded into doing something that he does not want to do. But this stubborness collides with his desire for attention and his need to have our approval. That's a lot of conflict for a not-yet-three-year-old brain.

I put his diaper back on and we had a pleasant, loving, and wonderful afternoon. I personally felt so relieved, because as soon as he became resistant I felt like we were doing the wrong thing by continuing to push him. But I felt pushed too, a bit, by society, and by concerns that people would believe I gave up just because it was tough. I'm not a quitter. Plus, I'm a pretty dedicated mom. I know I'm a bit too lenient - I'm that way with dogs and people - but I'm very aware of behavior and very sympathetic to changing emotions and feelings when I'm trying to "train" a behavior. That's how you get a lot of dogs to do a lot of tricky things over a lot of years. I'm patient and persistent. I would have made 1000 trips to that potty in a day, and cleaned up 1001 accidents, if I thought that that was the right thing to do. But hearing my child sobbing over potty training - that did NOT feel right.

For now, I've bought some training pants, and in a few days we are going to practice taking his pants on and off by himself. I'm going to have my husband show him how he can pee on the cereal targets in the potty. We are getting some "It's great to pee in the potty" videos from the library. I'm going to buy a special little potty (we've been using a little seat on the regular toilet) and we are going to decorate it with stickers. And then I'm going to just let it sit there until he's ready to use it. Because I've learned that while you can lead a toddler to the potty, you can not make him pee.