Potty Problems

We’ve ignored potty training Abbie for too long. We’ve seen the signs that she’s ready for months now: She can remove her pants, she has words for the potty, and relatives are nagging us. She just hasn’t seemed ready, though.

While her skills in areas such as climbing and breaking into locked rooms are far beyond her peers, she’s far behind her peers in other areas, specifically anything involving social talent. She doesn’t speak well, she doesn’t play much with others, and she doesn’t understand what a potty is used for beyond standing on it to grab the toothpaste tube I left beyond her reach.

Still, it’s time to try to train her. Our neighbor says three-years is the perfect age to train a child; it’s the time when they’re old enough to control things physically and understand concepts mentally. Our neighbor should know about these things since she has eight kids and inexplicably wants more.

The peer pressure is starting to hit me, too. I certainly notice who is and isn’t potty trained when we visit library story time. I don’t care that she’s the oldest child who refuses to sit still for the story, but the fact that she’s the oldest child still in diapers screams “bad parent.” Plus, her preschool demands that she be potty trained when she starts in the fall, and I’m certainly not going to taunt them by sending her on the bus with a diaper.

After breakfast yesterday, we finally gave up hope that she’d magically train herself, and hit the potty. We took off her diaper, slipped on some underwear, and laid out the ground rules. When she has to pee, she has to use the potty. When she uses the potty, she can have chocolate chips as a reward. If she pees while off the potty, she’ll get her Dora underwear wet, and that would make Dora very sad.

Knowing how much better toddler life goes when it’s on a routine, we used a timer to keep everything on a schedule. She’d spend five minutes on the potty, and 15 minutes off. If she doesn’t pee while on the potty, that’s okay, but she has to stay seated.

I gave her a cup of apple juice to prime the pump, and sent her on her way. After 15 minutes, we went to find her, discovered the puddle on the floor, and chalked up our first accident of the day.

Accident #2 came before her second potty session. With two floor puddles, two wet pairs of Dora panties, and zero successes, we went au natural with Abbie. She ran around the house naked, which didn’t deter the puddles, but at least it kept her underwear dry and neatly folded in the dresser drawer. I kept giving her juice to keep things flowing, and kept persevering.

She had three more accidents in the next four potty cycles, and still zero successes. The puddles were starting to become more annoying too, appearing on furniture and rugs, or popping up in the path of her brothers’ feet and their cow blankets.

The problem wasn’t getting her to sit on the potty. She’d happily sit there, possibly because it’s the only non-pre-nap time that I would sit and read with her. She just refused to do anything while seated except demand another book.

We gave in a little at this point. We put her in pull-ups. We wanted to keep her away from anything too similar to a diaper, but we were tired of cleaning accidents and the ensuing messes they created. Plus Abbie was getting tired of being forced to sit and all that juice we kept cramming down her throat, so it seemed time to let up a little. We slipped on the pull-ups and told her to keep them dry or the stars will disappear.

Within minutes, the stars were gone. The girl absolutely refuses to pee in the potty. We’re ready to reward her with the greatest treats in the toddler universe when she goes correctly, but she can’t make the leap to proper peeing.

After a tough morning, everyone was cranky. We completely gave up, put a diaper on her, and promised we’d go back to work tomorrow. Or maybe the next day.