Pooptastrophe: An Update

Remember that post about potty training I wrote more than a year ago? I wish I could say that after I wrote it my son quickly figured out the potty and life has been blissfully diaper-free ever since. I certainly didn’t plan to write about poop on my blog (or anywhere) again. But here I am. I want to share this because I know I’m not the only mom for whom potty training is a remarkable struggle, and if this can help or encourage someone it’s worth it.

After the pooptastrophe messes ended, Lincoln’s potty training status didn’t change for more than a year. I kept buying diapers, and he kept going in them, with the occasional small victory of him peeing in the potty when we could coax him to try. We offered incentives, bought cool underwear, tried bribing with M&Ms and Matchbox cars, but nothing could make him give up his diapers and go on the potty. He flat-out refused to even try pooping on the toilet. (He did poop in the backyard once, but we decided not to encourage that…)

As he passed his third birthday, and then passed 3-1/2 as well, his inner conflict and my frustration grew in tandem. He was old enough to completely understand the situation. He knew he should go on the potty, he knew he should wear big boy underwear like his friends, and a part of him wanted to, but he just couldn’t do it. I didn’t want my frustration to show, so when I ran out of new methods to try, I stopped even asking him about the potty for awhile and just quietly changed his pull-ups. He frequently struggled with constipation from holding it, he would hide from us to poop even though he didn’t need to, and he just seemed miserable.

Finally, two weeks ago, we got truly desperate. His fourth birthday was coming. School was starting in a month and he had to be potty trained to attend Pre-K. The diapers had to go. So my husband and I resolved to get rid of pull-ups, except at night, and just wash a lot of underwear and gently encourage him to use the toilet until something finally changed. We knew it could take a long time, and we even knew he might not be ready in time to go to preschool, and we were okay with that.

The first day of our new plan was so hard. Actually, the entire first week was hard. He peed on the potty without a problem, but he also pooped in his underwear in tiny increments constantly throughout the day. One day I helped him change his underwear 12 times. We had a special bucket in the utility sink for soaking dirty underwear. It was gross. And nothing seemed to change, except that I now had to stop what we were doing every 15 minutes to do an “undie check.” But after a week, things did start to change, almost indiscernibly. Lincoln would sit longer on the toilet (while we read to him) and I could tell he was really trying not to poop in his underwear. But I didn’t want him to get constipated again or make himself sick from holding it. My friend Heather suggested letting him watch or play something on the iPad while sitting on the toilet, and I resisted the idea. We only allow our kids very limited iPad time, and it also just felt kind-of gross to hand electronics to my son on the toilet, but I finally decided to try it. (Something this whole process taught me is humility and willingness to try a lot of things because you never know what will finally work!)

The day I tried it was the day before his fourth birthday. We had just gotten home from a frustrating morning at the dentist and all I was really thinking about was getting lunch in our bellies. It had been days since Lincoln’s last bowel movement and I could tell that he had been holding it all morning. I told him if he sat on the potty, he could play his favorite iPad game while he was sitting and trying to go. When I checked on him five minutes later, he had gone pee and poop in the toilet and was still nonchalantly sitting there, playing his game. He hasn’t had an accident since. After nearly two years of struggling, a silly iPad game was what it took to relax him enough to go, and when he finally went his fear was gone.

A few of the major things I learned through this entire process:

1. Everyone says it, but it’s true: wait until they’re ready. And by ready, I mean practically begging you to let them use the toilet. If you feel desperate and you just want to be done with diapers so you think about trying out a potty training bootcamp with your child who has shown no interest in it, don’t do it. Just don’t.
2. Gauge and know your child. This also probably goes without saying, but every kid handles this differently. They all approach it with different hang-ups. Be sensitive to those things. Will they respond better to a slow, gradual process, or a two-day all-or-nothing approach? Are they willful, or genuinely scared of something? Do they learn by example, by reading a book with you and talking a lot about it, or just trying it themselves? Don’t assume that your strong-willed child will be difficult to potty train, or that the laid-back baby of the family will be a breeze because they’ve watched their older siblings.
3. Never shame them. Shame and the bathroom should never go together. Despite the frustration we sometimes felt with Lincoln during this process, we tried never to show it. Instead of sighing and complaining or berating him every time he went in his diaper, we tried to say things like, “Next time maybe you can go on the potty like a big boy.” I said that daily for almost two years; eventually, it happened.
4. It’s not about you. Whenever I make one of my kid’s milestones or accomplishments more about me than about them, things go terribly wrong. When it’s more about my convenience and not wanting to change diapers anymore than it is about my child’s comfort and readiness, I need to realign my priorities.
5. Gather allies. I was given a wealth of encouragement (and advice, when asked) from fellow moms. I confided in Lincoln’s teachers at church so they knew the situation. I never realized how common and varied potty training struggles are until I confided in other moms and heard their stories. So often we try to gloss over our parenting struggles because we’re embarrassed, but then we end up struggling alone and we miss out on the great encouragement that can be found in simply saying, “Me too. I’m going through that too. You’re not alone.”