Potty Training Learnings
Collapsable Game Changing Princess Potty
Potty Training. There aren’t two words that a toddler parent dreads more…I was so incredibly nervous about this process. All I could think of is that I would mess my little baby up somehow and mentally scar her for life during this rite of passage. So…almost 8 months after officially ‘potty training’ LBB, I wanted to share some of the things I’ve learned to help another fellow parent in the trenches.
I don’t know if it’s all the frantic text messages from friends that are either going through it currently or are dealing with regressions? Or now they are dealing with their second child and having to ‘rethink’ the potty training phase… whatever the phase your in, I know how cliché it sounds, but you’re not alone. Although, I haven’t gone through it more than once, I don’t think it gets any easier the second time around. Every child is so different, and each one reacts differently to every life change. But, what I can say is this. It went SO MUCH more smoothly than I could have anticipated because of a few things we did to prepare.
So… you’ve read a few books, talked to some friends, and know the general gist of what to do. but still don’t feel prepared. I get it, I was one of those parents. Even after reading “Oh Crap” and skimming “Potty Training in 3 Days” I honestly still felt a bit lost as to how I was supposed to react during each step of this ‘learning’ curve. So insert “Big Little Feelings” Potty Training Made Simple course. I had heard of a few friends that had tried other methods, failed miserably, and then took this course and tried again and it went great. So I had high hopes for this course. It was a group of videos designed to help get you through each step of the process and equip you with the psychology behind what is happening with your little, and how to react in each circumstance to help ease the process and get to your goal. Which is exactly what I felt I needed to be successful. Aymeric and I watched the videos in little chunks at night on 1.2 speed (it felt incredibly slow at 1.0) the week before we had blocked off the 3 days to train. In short, many training methods have the 3 day rule:
Day 1: Naked Day
Day 2: Introduce Pants
Day 3: Introduce Undies & Leave the house in tiny stints
So once the 3 days to train came around, I felt like I was slightly more prepared mentally than before. We had even prepped LBB the day before by letting her know that tomorrow we’ll be saying goodbye to diapers, and going pee and poop on the potty. When day 1 hit, I was watching LBB like a hawk… not over prompting, but being alert and trying to keep my cool. I had prepped the house by rolling up the carpet in the living room, and laying out these large dog reusable pee pee pads in carpeted areas. We had gotten them when LBB had a massive diaper rash and needed to be diaper free for extended periods of time when she was little. I hung onto them for this exact purpose. Similar to these here. We got this tiny potty from Target that we had staged in the bathroom for months before starting this process just so that she would see it and gain some ‘interest’ in it before the big day. I also bought this traveling toilet seat cover so that we could turn any ‘big potty’ into a toddler friendly potty on the go. And I started with this traveling toddler toilet. Which I found out LBB hated so I bought this princess collapsible potty and it’s been the best investment I’ve made so far. So… here we go. Day one went… relatively well all things considered, except for the pee LBB made on our bed after I looked away for less than a minute. Aymeric had to go to a laundromat to wash our duvet since it wouldn’t fit in our washing machine. This is when I found out that LBB is a camel… and can hold her pee for HOURS. I had waited all morning for her to finally ‘go’ and she managed to let it all out on our bed. Oh well… we still had plenty of chances to make it in the potty from then on out. Day two went much more smoothly. She was totally getting the hang of it, and only made one accident that day. Day three is when things got too real. Leaving the house. We went on a walk to the park and brought her traveling potty with us. We then found out she hated it, and wouldn’t use it, and then peed all over herself, including shoes, at the park. We changed her and rushed home shoeless to reconsider all my life choices. That is also when I learned to ensure that I always had a second set of shoes with me at all times along with a change of clothes. At least at the beginning of the process. You can thank me later for that tip, and spare the shame of strolling home with a shoeless toddler. After we swapped out the hated travel potty for the beloved Princess Potty, things got much easier. Although, I will say that I wish I had blocked out more than 3 days of our life schedules just to ease back into regular life. It felt like ripping off the biggest band aid putting LBB in her carseat for the first time, or sitting through her dance class for the first time etc. Had I canceled a few more things that first week it might have felt less stressful for me as the parent. I think LBB could have cared less really, she was doing great at that point, but it was anxiety provoking for me to figure out how to juggle a freshly training kiddo in our regular life. Eventually we went through all of life’s ‘firsts’ without a diaper and somehow managed to come out on the other side unscathed. We even introduced underwear (I found two cute undies from Boden (linked here) and Tiny Undies (linked here). My cousin swore by Tiny Undies so we gave them a whirl, they run small however just as a side note. That was a fun change for her that she enjoyed. As time went on, she seemed to be very consistent with the tiny potty at home and the Princess Potty on the go. However, we are still using pull ups or ‘sleep undies’ as the Big Little Feelings calls them for both naps and nighttime use. We have had two types of pull ups that we’ve used and enjoyed Dyper brand pull ups that we had a subscription to since she was 6 months old, and more recently we switched to Coterie pull ups since there was an issue with the pull ups from Dyper one month and didn’t ship. Both have been great and kept her bum dry and happy, and about the same price for luxe diapers. I will say however that the Coterie pull ups are more form fitting and seem to hold in the poo better if there’s a blip in the process during sleep. LBB typically always ends up with a blue line post nap. There have been a few occasions where she’s stayed dry, but we haven’t had enough consistent dry days to cross that hurdle to go pullup free. I’ve been told from pediatricians etc. that you need to go a week or two of dry diapers before making the jump. LBB has also had a really bad habit of going poo while sleeping for both nap and bedtime for quite some time. Everytime I think we’re mostly over that phase, I find a lump of gold in her pull up post sleep. It’s so… well… unpleasant. But within the last few months, I think she has either gotten more comfortable going poop on the big potty during her wake hours so there isn’t a turd left to plop in the dyp while sleeping, or she has just come to her own conclusion that a turd smashed up on the bum isn’t a pleasant feeling. At any rate, I do think we’re almost past this phase. This is probably one of the most challenging things about the whole process. Really with parenting in general. Just when you think your child ‘should’ be over something, or past not being afraid of the auto flushes or hand dryers in public restrooms etc, they aren’t. Or one day they are fine with it, and the next they aren’t. It can be infuriating when you’re on the run and know they have to go but won’t. These are the times that I have to really check myself and remember that this is still all relatively new for them. Giving them grace and time to conquer these new situations and adjusting to each process in their own time can take a mountain of patience, but eventually they do come out the other side. Take the tiny potty for example. LBB REFUSED, to use the big potty for ages. She went through a phase early on where she was cool with it, but then one day it just stopped. Over. Fin. I felt like I had night sweats thinking about having to clean the little potty for the 100th time that week after each fresh load was dropped. This honestly was my biggest realization as a parent. Just because you’re ‘done’ with diapers… does not equate to being done wiping bums and cleaning poo. It just gets migrated from a diaper to a tiny pot. blarg. I am most definitely not look back at cleaning that thing fondly! Gaggggggg. It incites my germaphobia thinking about feces particles flying through the bathroom being transferred from the little to potty to the big commode. And then when things get stuck in the bucket (ok ok I’ll stop), but you get my point. It’s yucko. But anyway, my point being. Just when I thought she would never make the leap back to using the big potty, one day, she just started using it, and POOF, never in my wildest dreams did I think we’d get there, and then she did. One day after one particularly large dump in the tiny potty. I told her that it would be cleaner if she poo’d in the big one. I think clearly she will inherit my germiness… for better or worse. That’s what did it. For a week or so, she would pee in the little and poo in the big, and then all of sudden, it just all started to click. I think at this point I’m going to just put the tiny pot away and be done with it, just so we don’t have any regressions. Same goes for public restrooms for us, we’re almost there I think but that mountain of patience is still being formed as we speak.
So a few more things I learned after the fact… be prepared for minor setbacks. Some parents have setbacks after a new sibling comes, others just have one day when you’re child won’t go on the big potty. Something will go off the rails at some point. So just be ready. Also, decide what type of potty parent you want to be outside of the house. I saw a range of parents pre-potty training. Some were what I called ‘bush parents’ that went and found the nearest bush to go, while others made it a point to find the nearest restroom and solely go there. For some reason the later felt a bit overwhelming knowing that you were on the clock the second your little says the words ‘I gotta gooooo’ but that behavior has come back to bite me in the bum a bit. One of the things I wish I had done more consistently early on when on the go is going to an actual restroom to go potty. Obviously, based on my own personal nature. Public restrooms are low on my totem pole of places I’d like to spend time. Insert a toddler that has no concept of germs, that ranking plumits even lower. However, I think because I did have the collapsible travel potty, I tended to find a concealed corner somewhere for her to go, or just have her go in the trunk of the car. This created a safe space for her to go, but in the end I think she also created her own over heightened fear of public restrooms. It got to the point for a while that she wouldn’t even want to go into a restroom when I had to go. So I’d basically have to drag her in there kicking and screaming just for me to relieve myself. It was miserable. I can see why people sing in the shower, the acoustics are major… but just not in a good way with a screaming toddler. We are making progress however, she is now willing to go in with me not crying, and the other day she even asked herself to go into the restroom to go pee. Miracles do happen. The only habit we haven’t quite broken yet, but I know will come, is going potty under the table at restaurants. Somehow I had the hairbrained idea of doing this one day, and now I won’t live this one down. Just a fun story for you to give you a giggle that I’ll share before we depart. LBB and I were at Nordstrom Café the other day at lunch with some friends, and the urge hit for LBB to go. So, I tried to right my wrongs and to go an actual restroom to go. She was having nothing to do with it. So, I had to begrudgingly head back to the table to have her go under the table. Luckily the friends we were with were not phased by my poor parenting decisions. To my dismay, it was a number two. So, I’m there going through the finishing touches and pulling up the pants, when I then had to find a place to dispose of the said… um… turd. So, I had to run through Nordstrom Café, carrying a bright yellow ‘sac de turd’ with a fresh load to the restroom trash. It was like carrying a homing device of shame wafting stink. I don’t know if my embarrassment has been that high in a while. But you know, parenting is meant to humble you, and indeed it has.
All of this to say, everything in life is a phase, and this too shall pass. Potty training can be daunting, but in the long run, it’s so worth it. Plus, I think it’s a great burst of confidence for your little one to show them that they can really make the leap themselves and be proud of their accomplishments. So cheers to all the tears shed during this process for both toddlers and adults, the glass of bubbly at the end of the process is waiting for you. Bonne chance!
