Potty training — Round 2

Posted in Potty Training
by Alicia Castelli

So Round 1 of toilet training went to our son. (Notice how this had gone from helping our son master a new skill to feeling like a pitched battle?)

Round 2 began again a couple months before his third birthday. No bribes, posters or stickers this time. We finally realized this whole thing was up to Ryan. He’d do it when he was good and ready to do it and not one second sooner.

Compounding this dilemma was a difficult pregnancy for me. It was often all I could do to get through the day with my eyes open, let alone continually ask our son to sit on the toilet. Such requests were always met with a steadfast refusal anyway, unless it was bedtime. Then he could sit on that darn toilet for hours.

We let him pick out some new underpants — Buzz Lightyear, of course — and hoped he would work at using the toilet in order to wear them. Not so much. He did ask to wear them a couple of times, but each time he wet his pants within 10 minutes. I usually discovered this the hard way, since he wouldn’t tell me he’d wet himself. Clearly this was not a particularly uncomfortable state for him. I bought a can of Scotch Guard and some upholstery cleaner.

Our son was still using the toilet at bath time and bedtime, but that was it.

As my pregnancy progressed, our son’s aversion to being a “big boy” grew in direct proportion. He reverted to baby talk and began refusing to use the potty at bath time. (Bedtime trip was still not a problem since it delayed bedtime, of course.)

At the same time, he was deeply offended if his pull-ups were referred to as a diaper. We clutched at this small ray of hope with the death grip only a parent envisioning putting pull-ups into their child’s backpack for school can imagine.

So we continued to ask our son to use the bathroom, and we continued to be disappointed by his refusal. The fact that he would come up to us with a sly little smile and tell us he needed to be changed made me believe this was, in fact, some sort of power struggle.

Every once in a great while, however, he did ask to use the bathroom. Every once in a great while, he would use the bathroom on his own without even asking us.

On these occasions, we offered him praise and encouragement and basked in the small dot of light at the end of this tunnel. That light was usually attached to an oncoming train as our son then reverted to steadfast refusals once again, and our hopes were dashed.

Practically the only time our son voluntarily used the bathroom was at Wal-Mart. Those toilets that flush automatically fascinated him to no end. He suspected all public bathrooms did this, and therefore asked to use the bathroom whenever we went anywhere.

He’d have been potty trained in a week if our toilet at home had that little red light above it and flushed by itself. Throw in the sinks that turn on automatically when you put your hands under the faucet and heck, he’d never leave the bathroom!

Then the new baby was born, and we saw the end of potty training altogether once again. It was 100 percent refusal 100 percent of the time. It was not a surprise, however, since our reading told us to expect setbacks with the advent of another child.

So there we were. Our son was 3½ and still in pull-ups. We though about Scotch Guarding the furniture and carpets, taking away the pull-ups and just putting him in underpants, except that he didn’t mind wetting himself. A newborn baby left me with very little extra time, so I couldn’t quite see myself handling the extra laundry and following my son around with a bucket and sponge to clean up after him all day.

All through that summer he delighted in announcing, “Mommy, I’m poopy!” and then running away or complaining loudly while I changed him because he wanted to play. The one time I physically held him on the toilet he screamed and cried and struggled until I let him get down.

Round 2 also goes to Ryan. The third and final round was about to begin …