I couldn't care less if David is potty-trained. He can wear diapers until he's 12 for all I care. Okay, maybe I would care a little if he were facing the prospect of middle school in diapers. But I'm lazy, and I admit that diapers are convenient.
But I do care about preschool. And David has to be potty-trained for that. Yeah, yeah, he's only three, and three-year-olds don't need preschool. But David does. Trust me. So if I want him to go to preschool, he's got to be potty-trained. Or, as my mom pointed out, at least fake potty-trained. As the summer has progressed, and potty-training discouragement has set in, I am heartened by the fact that he only has to be able to go 2 1/2 hours twice a week without wetting his pants. We have in our favor the facts that 1) David has a bladder the size of Lake Erie and 2) he doesn't drink much in the morning. I think we are nearing our goal of having him fake potty-trained, although he did have an accident in Sunday during nursery class, which was the first he's ever had in public. Oh well. The biggest obstacle at this point is the phrase "thoroughly potty-trained" that's printed several times in the preschool's informational brochure--it's nagging at my conscience a little. Is it unethical to send your child out into the world only fake potty-trained?
For the sake of having a written record (for the day when I'm a grandma and my children call me asking what I did), here is our potty-training journey so far.
We had a few half-hearted (more like one-sixth-hearted) attempts that were false starts. David expressed a lot of interest last summer, after he turned two. But we were moving from Turkey to Ohio--that's a big move, and we certainly didn't need potty-training added to the mix. Then Mary was born, so, again, it was out of the question. I decided we would potty-train in January, after our trip to Texas, when he would be two-and-a-half. I made the conscious decision not to read any books on the matter. David has never done anything according to the book, I was sure this would be no exception, and I was tired of feeling like a failure as a mother because my kid apparently skipped God's pre-earth-life orientation meeting on how he was supposed to behave as a baby and toddler when he got here. So we bought a potty chair and checked out a few videos from the library, and that was that. David was excited--for about two minutes. That's when I realized this was going to be hard work. I also realized, with its being the dead of winter, this was going to involve either taking his pants off and on 3,000 times a day, moving to the Southern Hemisphere, or turning the thermostat up to 80. I decided to wait for warmer weather.
I was anxious to potty-train in the spring because David would receive reinforcement at Four Oaks from Miss Fran and Miss Julie. They could be an invaluable resource. But I kept procrastinating because the weather was too good. We had been hibernating all winter--I had no desire to sit at home chained to the toilet. Time was quickly running out though--come June, David would graduate from Four Oaks. I knew I was going to have to be a little more serious this time, so I thought about how to tackle the issue. I admit, there was a part of me that resisted the idea of bribery. I hoped he would do it out of the goodness of his heart. (You can laugh.) My friend Gina had mentioned once that when her boys were potty-training, every time they had a success, they received an M&M and they also got to give an M&M to everyone in the family. When her son Caleb came over for playgroup the week he was potty-training, each time he had a success, he got to share M&Ms with all of his friends. I loved this idea because it was more of a celebration than bribery. In May I tried it. I will never forget the incredulous look on David's face that said, "You want me to do what for one measly M&M?!" The idea that Mommy and Daddy got M&Ms too didn't help. We gave up before we even started. That's when I threw my silly principles out the window--this was going to take some serious bribery.
Greg had a couple of weeks off in June, and I knew his help (and patience) would be necessary, so we tried again (this time whole-heartedly) right after our trip to Pittsburgh. We decided to start with a bang (i.e. big-time bribery) to get David's attention. David is a busy fellow, and keeping him in the bathroom seemed near impossible. So he got M&Ms for sitting on (and standing at) the toilet and trying. At first we set a timer to make sure he tried for a significant amount of time, but it scared him, so we became more flexible. For every song or two we sang while he was at the toilet, he got an M&M. For each success, he received a Matchbox car. Yes, you read that correctly--for each single success, he received a brand new Matchbox car. It worked like magic! We put several cars, still in their packages, in the bathroom for him to look at and covet. But they couldn't leave the bathroom or come out of the package. When he peed in the toilet, he could choose one. We soon could give up the M&Ms because he would stand at the toilet for seemingly hours sipping water, staring at the cars, discussing which one he wanted next, waiting to pee. (One time the cars fell in the toilet--I never knew I was capable of sticking my bare hand down a toilet so fast!) He earned 2-4 cars a day, and he typically had the same number of accidents. We sustained this method of bribery for about 3 days. It was enough to give us a good start. Those first few days were exhausting, but I could see, and, more importantly, David could see, that successes were possible.
We then switched to sticker charts with prizes (toys we'd picked up on clearance) at the end. This was a little tricky. It took a while to work out how many stickers it should take to get the prize (10 was too many but 5 wasn't enough), and at what point to show him what the prize was (seeing the prize was motivating but sometimes too motivating). We used this method of bribery for about 4 days. By this point, we'd been potty-training for a week, and we were in a rhythm. We didn't need such big bribes anymore. In fact, the best reward soon became singing the "Go, David!" song.
Since then we've been mixing it up a lot. (That's how David likes things anyway. He is not a creature of habit. This is the child who has a different comfort object every week. If you have given David a blanket, I can guarantee he formed an attachment to it...for two days.) We bribed him with whatever suited our (and his) fancy--stickers, computer time, train videos, bike rides, watermelon, popsicles, trips to the library or park, whatever. Or we didn't bribe him at all. Nowadays, we occasionally send a small toy his way, but only when enthusiasm is lagging, and only if he goes the whole day without any wet accidents.
That brings us to the present. David has few wet accidents. That is because Greg and I are very well-trained now. Except for that day in the Gap, David has yet to show much initiative of his own. When I talk to him about his new school (and how he has to go pee-pee in the toilet all by himself there), sometimes he'll have a burst of enthusiasm and run into the bathroom without any prompting from me. I sense that he still hasn't completely figured the whole thing out. Occasionally he shows signs of confusion (like he used to think that peeing on the living room carpet was just as praiseworthy as peeing in the toilet, and sometimes he has difficulty recognizing the different urges), so I have to remind myself that the process isn't as simple as it seems. He's learning, and it's going to take time, especially since I don't think he's really, really focused on it yet. (There are much more important things to do--like jumping on the bed and building train tracks.) Despite his lack of initiative, he does, however, seem to sense that having an accident in public is not a good thing. After the first week of potty-training, we resumed our normal routine, and he has only had one accident in public (last Sunday). He definitely lets down his guard at home, but out and about he is capable of holding it for hours and hours until I finally remember to take him to the bathroom. This is why I think he might be able to go to preschool, even if he's not "thoroughly potty-trained."
For clarification, bowel movements are a different matter. And we treat them as such (no amount of bribery is going to help, at least not yet). We've had only three successes (four if you count the time he pulled down his underpants to try and a hard little turd rolled out onto the floor--he thought it was a success and was very proud of himself). Needless to say, Mr. Regular is now more often than not Mr. Constipation. Which is why we let him spend an hour or so a day in a diaper to take care of business. Now is not the time to tackle that issue head-on. (I can't imagine that he would allow himself to have a messy accident in public. Going to preschool constipated is better than not going at all...right?)
If David starts preschool in six weeks, you'll know that we can at least pretend that he is potty-trained. And if you come to our house and see that our handmade carpets are out, you'll know "mission accomplished"...but I think it's going to be a while until we unroll those carpets.
[If you are still reading this post you are either 1) my mom, who thinks all the mundane details of my children's lives are fascinating (thank you, Mom!) or 2) currently or soon-to-be potty-training your own little one. For those of you in the second group, looking for some inspiration and/or consolation, may I refer you to a few blog posts where I found inspiration and/or consolation. Want to know how utterly exhausting it is at the beginning? Read here and here on my sister-in-law's blog. She went through it a month before we did, and I appreciate her honesty. And then read here for her reflections and tips. Also, just after David started potty-training, so did his second cousin Victor. Victor's mom meticulously records his potty-training stats each day. It's a fabulous real-life record, and I've followed it religiously this summer, watching Victor's ups and downs, just as we go through our own ups and downs. Start here and work backwards towards the present day. (And thank you, Cyndie.)]
