Potty Training

WARNING contains graphic poop talk

So we embarked on potty training using the 3-day intensive method. I thought I was prepared but boy was it tough! First off, I totally forgot to plan dinners for the event that were easy to whip up. Thankfully Jamie was there for most of it so we made do. Secondly, I bought some juice and things I thought he’d like to drink, but we needed an emergency run for different juice after the first day. Thirdly, it was really really trying on the patience, more so than I anticipated when I thought I was ready!

Anyway, the other complicating factor was the fact that I had planned this time for weeks, working around our schedules to find the 3 days. What I was unable to know in advance is that Judah would get some sort of stomach bug two days before the big event. I was sure we should just cancel and bummed since our next window was weeks away, plus it sucks when kids are sick anyway and it really sucks when you get barfed on as a result.

So, on Friday morning we woke up and Judah was himself again, I was wavering on whether to go with training or not and when he threw a tantrum when I went to change his diaper I said “that’s it, lets go with it.” Figuring we could always just quit if we needed to. So off we went. Diaper off and first thing he did was pee in the toilet!  He got a special present and an M&M. As the day went we had very few chances to practice because he was not interested in drinking my selection of beverages. That said, we still made lots and lots of trips to the potty to try as he had figured out the M&M reward system. At first I was giving him one for just trying but I soon wised up to him wising up and we switched to sticker on a chart in the bathroom which he really liked. He had an accident on the bathroom floor when he went in and was hiding behind the door.  And then came the poop. Remember I said he had been sick, well that made his poop super duper runny. He looks up really alarmed and I say “run to the bathroom!”. As I run after him I swooped him up and we made it to the hard flooring before it started running out all over the floor. Yeah, that happened...twice.

Since I mentioned the poop let me say how I dealt with it. I am not a cloth diaper-er so I had to have a few crazed text exchanges with my friends who do. Turns out they scrap it or spray it into the toilet. Since I didn’t have a sprayer for our runny mess I substituted the shower spray wand and cleaned the bathtub after. Another friend had the helpful hint to have a bucket of water and oxyclean to soak the dirty undies while they waited for washing. She even loaned some oxyclean to us which Jamie picked up on the way home.

I had been wavering on whether to go all the way and try to night and nap train. After discussions with friends we adopted “night night” pants which were basically the special training pants with a washcloth insert and rubber cover. Crazily, he ended up waking up dry or when he was needing to pee! Not perfectly of course but it made me realize it wasn’t as far off as I thought. The sad part of that of course is that during nap it was like an 1-1.5 hours into what is typically at least a 2 hour nap. Oh well. One other helpful training hint was to make his bed with multiple layers of sheets and rubber sheets. So I did two layers of matress pad, rubber sheet, and sheet.

Most of what I remember of Day 2 is more accidents and some successes. Oh, and getting barfed on again. After his lack of drinking on Day 1 we loaded up on juices and started offering them right away. So before he ate anything for breakfast he had orange juice and like two other juice boxes. It turns out that if you don’t ever give your kid juice its probably not a good idea to overload their system with it like this, and all on an empty stomach. They will barf, all over you. So now I’m thinking I’m the worst mother of the year, potty training while he is still sick with the stomach thing. We had no idea of what to do, continue or quit. He kept telling us when he had to go to the potty and acted his normal self again after some breakfast so we kept on (when he had the stomach bug he was a rag doll in my arms all day and napped most of the time so acting his normal self was a good clue that it was just a sugar overload).

Day 3 finally arrived. I had been texting for moral support with several friends who all encouraged me that it might not click until the last day. This was very helpful, if you train get yourself a support group of friends. We had one or two accidents but overall it was much much better. He even pooped in the potty for the first time! That was very encouraging that we were going to be ok. I had debated trading my work day on Monday for a Day 4 but my sitter was game to have him over and give her son some experience to the training so we went back to our new normal life on Monday!