Zianne is officially potty-trained… mostly.
Except that she still has accidents a few times a week. And sometimes she goes into the bathroom to use the toilet and somehow pees all over the floor instead. And she sleeps in a diaper at night.
Many moms might rave about the three-day method of potty training, but I’m here to tell you about the 63 day method…
Potty-training is hard. And tiring. And I don’t believe children actually potty-train in three days. Maybe yours did, but I don’t think most do.
We did the whole stay-at-home-for-three-days thing. It went fine. I think most children, if they are old enough, can get the hang of the toilet in three-ish days. But then we ran into a problem… I had to go places. We were taking a weekend trip to Arizona. We brought the little potty and kind of used it while we were there. Then we came back home and I still had to go places… you know, like the gym and the grocery store. We needed to eat. So then I used pull-ups for a week or two, so I wouldn’t go insane. Then my mom came to visit and said pull-ups were confusing Zianne, so we stopped using them. The next day Z did her first outing in underwear… one hour at the library with grandma. It was a success. This only happened because I had extra adult assistance.
Now I would say Zianne is 90% potty trained. We are done with the little potty. She can go on the big toilet by herself. She only drips pee on the toilet 80% of the time. She only pees on the floor around the toilet about once per week. She poops on the potty unless she’s swimming. If we swim, there will be some kind of accident. I’ve actually considered writing “clean poop out of swimsuit” into my weekend schedule. Z wears underwear during her nap, but I still put her in a diaper at night. Up until this week, she was almost always dry in the morning, so I ditched the night diaper. She wet the bed. Two nights in a row. Now she is back in a diaper and it’s soaking every morning. I don’t know…
But I do know this… anyone who says “You should potty-train before your next baby comes!” or “Won’t it be so nice not to have two in diapers?” is crazy. Do you know what’s much harder than having two in diapers? Potty training. Because now I have only one in diapers and that sweet little baby has to suffer through potty-training with us. She hangs out in the shopping cart by herself, while I stand in the bathroom doorway at the back of the grocery store, trying to keep my eye on both kids at once. Talitha has been set down on the floor of the public bathroom in extreme emergencies. It’s a painful confession, but what else is a mom to do?
I have no advice on how to potty train. In fact, what I’ve written here is probably everything you should NOT do. But when it comes down to it, my daughter is 90% potty trained. It only took two months, but if this were potty-training school, that would be an A-. Seems respectable enough to me…
Calvin’s been fully potty trained for a while but I remember last year during swim he would ALWAYS poop in his swim diaper, always. It was plain awful. Maybe they like the sensation? I have no idea. Thankfully he now hates being too cold and has stopped that but I feel the pain.
I cannot wait for it to end! She has been doing a bit better the past two weeks. 🙂
Sounds like a success to me, 90% of anything is really good. Yeah, Zianne! Most importantly, Miss Zianne has a beautiful spirit, a winsome personality and a vocabulary unmatched with other two and a half year olds. So what if she leaves a little trail of pee? I sometimes do myself. When I had young ones and was frustrated with milestone achievementsI used to go by the 16 rule. I’d say to myself, “Well, when they’re 16 I probably won’t be dealing with this.” And guess what, I didn’t. When they were 16 I had concerns, but using the potty or pooping in the pool wasn’t one of them. Enjoy the ride — the whole messy journey — because in a blink you’ll long for these days to be back again. You really will, I promise.