Which brings me to the thing I’ve been struggling the most with recently: potty training. Or potty learning. Have you heard people calling it “potty learning” instead of what I always knew as “potty training”? Whatever you call it, I’m becoming more and more convinced that there’s not a whole lot I can do to train a child, and not a whole lot the child can do to learn, if certain things aren’t already in place.
I don’t even know for sure what those things are, the “certain things that need to be in place”—some unknown things swirling around in their little brains that need to settle down, drop anchor and get the potty synapses firing.
I definitely think there are things a parent can do to encourage the process. I always start by incorporating the idea of “going on the potty” into everyday conversation. I start talking about it whenever I remember that the child will be sort of ready for the potty sometime in the near future, or when he shows an interest—whichever comes first. Maybe at age 18 months? Or two years old?
Then I might start putting him on the potty pants-less for a minute or two here and there—a prime time is just before a bath.
The first time he has success—accidentally or on purpose—oh! What a big deal we make of it! Lots of clapping and hugs and praise!
All this, to start getting the idea that using the potty is good into their little heads. (Or into mine? It takes me a lot of mental preparation to get into potty training mode.)
When it seems the right time (another thing that’s hard to define), I move on to putting them in underpants for a little while every day or so, to see how they do. I bring them to the potty every half hour or so during those first few days or weeks of getting used to wearing underpants. There’s often messes to deal with during this time, but you know. Part of the process. No biggie.
So I say now, as I’m typing at a computer drinking coffee. Potty-training-me, the one dealing with the messes? Ooh. Not a mom you’d want to have. Not a mom anyone should have.
I don’t think anything drives me crazier than trying to potty train a child who keeps making messes. I’m my worst mom self during these times, especially when I consider that all this might just be beyond their current developmental abilities—can I really hold them accountable for something they’re incapable of doing “correctly”? Of course not. And yet, every single time I’m potty training one of my boys, I’m impatient and angry.
I try to take a cue from our pediatrician, who’s very laid back about the potty. I try to remember that I’ve never seen a Kindergartener wearing diapers. I try not to despair that I’m doing something wrong—am I pushing too hard? Not hard enough? I try not to listen to the stories of little girls who potty trained themselves when they were a year-and-a-half. I try not to pay too much attention to the fact that my toddler is more likely to tell me promptly that he needs a diaper change than my three-year-old is to tell me he needs to go potty or already did in his pants or diaper.
I do try to remember that it seems to me that my little guy hasn’t quite figured out the connection between feeling like he has to go and going; that he sometimes seems surprised to find that his diaper is full; that it doesn’t seem to bother him the least little bit that he’s still wearing diapers when lots of other kids his age—and all his big brothers—are wearing underpants.
This all consumes more of my mental energy than I try to let on. I’m trying not to be anxious that he’ll never figure it out. Because he’s got three older brothers that went through this process, and they all figured it out, despite the fact that I was sometimes sure they never would. In fact, it’s amazing to me to remember that not one of my boys had the same potty training experience as any of the others. Three boys out of diapers, three completely different experiences. And here again, my fourth boy, my fourth totally new, unique experience.
All that said, if anyone were to ask my advice about potty training—despite the fact that so little advice seems a perfect fit for every family—I would say that offering a lot of opportunities to sit on the potty, plus lots of encouragement, plus cheering when there’s success helps a lot (parents as well as children!). I’ve also had success in the past with the “put him in underpants all day, hunker down, and get ready for two weeks of mess with success at the end” method. But it does seem that if the child’s not ready, there’s nothing you can do to force the process.
So I tell myself, again and again, when, in response to me suggesting that big boys don’t wear diapers, my Mr. Diaper Pants says cheerfully, “I do!” Or, “I’m not a big boy. I’m a little boy.” Sigh.
“When he’s ready, he’ll do it,” more experienced moms keep telling me, and I believe them. “One day he’ll just decide he’s done with diapers,” they say, and I believe that too, because that’s what happened with each of my other boys, despite their otherwise completely different experiences. I just hope that day comes soon.
Kate Towne Sherwin is a stay-at-home mom (SAHM) living in Saratoga Springs with her husband and their sons Thomas (9), Gabriel (7), John Dominic (5), Xavier (3), and Thaddeus (21 months). She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
