I had heard that potty training a girl is easier than potty training a boy. However, I found that each of my kids had their challenges and different successes.
Let's start with my son. We started potty training him a month after he turned 3. I made sure I was equipped with everything that I had heard would help. I got a whole potty reward system with a sticker chart and a little crown he could wear when he used the potty. I had gotten a little potty that looked just like a big potty. It even had a little flusher he could push after he used it! I got a little Mickey Mouse themed toilet seat to put on top of the big toilet so he wouldn't fall, along with a Mickey Mouse step stool.
We stayed at home and any time I could tell he needed to go pee, I would walk him to the potty. Now, we tried a few times to get him to pee in the little white potty, but he wasn't really interested. So we just moved right to the big potty with the Mickey Mouse seat. It took a while for him to actually let himself pee in the toilet, but he eventually did it!
I did a few extra things to try to get him to actually pee. I put a few drops of food coloring into the toilet and told him that his yellow pee would turn the water green (get it? Blue and yellow make green! Brilliant!). It worked!
We taught him to pee sitting down first. But when it was time for him to learn to pee standing up, I threw a few Fruit Loops in there and told him to aim for those. Again, it worked!
But then...... things went downhill.
One morning around 5:00 we woke up to Colton screaming. Kip ran upstairs and found Colton holding his stomach and just crying. We didn't know what was going on. We wondered if it was his appendix or something.
Kip took him to the ER and they started to look for the issue. They tired to do an ultrasound on him to see if it was his appendix. But guess what? They couldn't see the appendix because his bladder was so full that it was in the way.
Colton had been holding his pee in. He had been refusing to pee and we just figured that he would eventually have to let it come out. NOPE! We ended up here:
Look at the stinker smiling his cute smile. It didn't last long. The next step was to get him to pee there at the hospital. His bladder needed to be emptied. But would he? No. No he wouldn't. So guess what happened next? He had to have a catheter.
It was so sad as a parent to have to sit next to your 3 year old and hold him down as they did the catheter. He was crying and it was so sad! But you would not believe the amount of pee that came out. Holy cow, it was a TON! The doctor said that in the 15 years he had been practicing, he had never seen a kid hold in their pee that long. Poop? Yes, he had seen that. Pee? No, definitely something new for him!
Yeah. Colton has a bladder made out of steel.
After that, I had to train him to PEE IN HIS DIAPER. He needed to know it was okay to pee. So we said bye to potty training for several weeks.
But I'm not going to lie. I was kind of starting to panic. Preschool was starting soon and he needed to know how to pee/poop in a toilet. So, as you can imagine, I was a bit nervous about trying to potty train him again.
But we went for it and it went soooooo much better! No ER visits were made and he made it to preschool:
Let's talk about Layla.
For Layla I listened to a book titled "Oh Crap! Potty Training: Everything Modern Parents Need to Know to Do It Once and Do It Right". The author is Jamie Glowaki and she is very blunt and tells it like it is. I will tell you right now that for a good portion of that book I felt like I got a good guilt trip for waiting so long to potty train her. The author recommends anytime between 20 and 30 months. Layla is 41 months, so almost 3 1/2.....
Why did I wait so long? Well, I kind of didn't mean to. First of all, she has a very strong personality. She knows what she wants and doesn't want and she lets you know. Loudly. I didn't want to deal with that.
As I was listening to the book I realized that I had actually missed a good window of opportunity. She talked about that timeframe of 20-30 months to potty train. When Layla is within that timeframe there was one week where she was interested in the potty and actually went a peed in it all on her own. In my mind I was like "Sweet! She is potty training herself!" But I didn't keep encouraging her to use the potty. I didn't want to pressure her and I thought that she would learn when she was ready.
That didn't work. She just reverted back to her diapers and didn't want anything to do with the potty. Fail.
I wish I would have found this book earlier. The method she talks about makes sense and it works. There is a chapter specifically for parents who have waited too long (me) to start potty training. For Layla, I basically just needed to get rid of all the diapers/pull-ups and tell her that they were gone. So I did. I got rid of them and told her that they were all gone and that now she needed to go pee and poop in the little potty.
Yeah, she threw a pretty good tantrum. She was definitely old enough to tell me that she wanted a pull-up. The book had a warning that if you had waited too long you would get a pretty good fight. Kids older than 3 have their own opinions and like to claim their independence. Layla absolutely has her own opinions, and her opinion on this particular day was that she needed a pull-up to pee in.
But I held strong, just like the book suggested. By the end of the day she was going pee in the little potty. However, the next day she was demanding a pull-up. Nope! I let her know that they were all gone. This time she wasn't mad for as long as she was the day before.
Day three came around and she still hadn't pooped, which is actually normal when potty training. I knew she had to poop, and she knew she had to. Again, she demanded a pull-up. She wanted to poop in it instead of the little potty. I had been putting MiraLAX in her drinks and knew that eventually that poop would have to come out.
On a side note, Layla has had constipation issues since.... forever. So I was a bit worried that she would just hold it in and we would end up at the doctor's office. But, she did it! Yes, I bribed her with candy. Yes, we did the happy dance when she went. Yes, she wanted everyone to look into the potty to see her poop. And yes, Colton was a trooper and came over to look and told her good job!
Great! She can officially go in the little potty! Next step was the big potty. We had a neighbor who told me about this cool toilet seat that was a regular toilet seat with a built-in potty training seat. See?
Turns out she wouldn't even give it a chance. Plus, what about when we are out an about? I can't bring that toilet seat. So, I whipped out our little Mickey Mouse seat and a step stool to see if that would work better.
(Side note: One day Colton threw up all over the Mickey Mouse step stool and we ended up just throwing it away.....I know. Wasteful. So we got Layla this step stool instead. It was worked great!)
Turns out that she was willing to try it and now that is what she uses! I just put the toilet topper in a plastic bag and bring it with us wherever we go. Now, for quiet time and at night we keep the little potty by her bed. It's just easier that way for now. Oh, and she is still wearing a nighttime diaper, for now. That's the next step for us!
So in the end, I highly recommend that book. I just checked out the audio book from the library and listened to it throughout my day. Now, she does drop the "F" bomb a few times in there, so just be aware of that.
You can do it!
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