Potty Training Attempt One:

Last updated on May 6th, 2024 at 10:17 am

“potty, what’s that momma?”

My son, Buba, turned two in August and has always been finicky about his clothes getting wet if he spilled something on them or if he got splashed by a someone. I am talking the slightest drop of water from his cup and he wanted a change of clothes pronto. He is a bright intelligent kid and usually picks up new things fairly quick. With his finicky ways in full force I thought maybe it was time to try potty training.

We went bought the cool boxer short underwear for him, the potty, the rock n’roll sweatpants that were easy to pull up and down, potty training books, and even ordered Lightening McQueen stickers as he is obsessed with the Disney movie Cars. I asked around about potty training from other mommies and the average conclusion was that they used bribery in the end, whether it be chocolate, candy, cakes, pop, ice cream, you name it. If I could use all those things just to get through potty training I would, but my son has severe allergies to a lot of foods therefore cannot have nor has ever had any of the above. So I wrote down a few things that I came across online to try out.

Day One:

I woke my son up and told him, “today we are going to wear your big boy pants.” I let him pick out which ones and put them on. I thought I would just jump in, put the big boy pants on and he would have a million accidents, I was prepared for. He would get the concept he is wet and doesn’t like it eventually. I couldn’t have been more wrong. We got downstairs for breakfast in his new big boy underwear, I had sat him on his potty for ten minutes before he ate and he did a pee. This gave me false hope. Could he really get it that quick, never! The morning went smoothly, few accidents and me asking if he needed to go pee-pee on the potty. I made sure to be his cheerleader and praise him when he was successful. He loved his Lightening McQueen stickers to stick on his potty for his reward. I also made sure not to get upset or mad when he did have an accident.

After Buba’s nap, all hell broke loose. He continued to play with his toy cars while sitting in a puddle of pee, not caring at all that he was driving his toys through his own pee.  Clearly being wet wasn’t phasing him at all. As I am cleaning up two separate accidents, he was standing naked in front of TV watching Curious George, peeing on the Sky box. It was a facet I couldn’t turn off. I had fully prepared for accidents and messes but I wasn’t prepared for the every five seconds mini puddles that were consuming my household. I thought to myself, “ok, its the first day, tomorrow will be better.”

Day Two:

I woke Buba up and this time had a little chat about what we were going to accomplish today. I had purchased a Elmo Uses The Potty book, so we read that after breakfast, pointing to Buba’s potty when the book referenced it. OK, time to sit on the potty try to pee and put  on the big boy underwear. All was well. He did a few more pee-pees in the potty that morning and off to his nap he went. I was overjoyed it was on a better track than day one. Progress.

By three o’clock we had only had two accidents, day two was going far better than predicted and I was excited that I might actually get through this stage without gaining a few grey hairs or lines on my face. The phone rang, rookie mistake, my phone call only lasted four minutes and in that time my son had pooed and smeared it all over our high gloss kitchen tiles. When I walked in he was running back and forth through it heading for our white carpets. Why we have two babies and white carpets is beyond me? “AHHHHH, Buba, STOP!” Thank god my son is a good listener and stopped. After twenty minutes of bleaching and scrubbing I was ready to give up. I knew he wouldn’t get it right away but having a newborn on top of the cleaning up wasn’t easy. I was constantly pulling her off the breast from feeding to go clean up yet another puddle.

Day Three:

I can say without explanation it was far worse than day two. It didn’t bother him if he was standing in his own pee or sitting in pants full of poo, yet a splash of water from his cup he still wanted to change his shirt. It just didn’t make any sense to me but I persevered.

Day Four:

Thank god for nursery. It was his first day in nursery during the potty training stage. I was excited to see how well he would do watching other kids use the potty and to have someone have complete attention on him as I couldn’t. I sent him with eight extra outfits and a huge pack of big boy underwear. His nursery was really supportive as I dropped him off. I expected a semi good report back since it was day four surely he would start understanding that he is wet or dirty after today.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. I walked into the nursery and was practically thrown my child and a huge black garage bag full of not only the eight outfits I brought him but three outfits of their own spares to wash. Along with the bag came a lecture on how my child was not ready to be potty trained and if he couldn’t tell he needed to go by next week nursery day please bring him in diapers. Eeek. To say I was embarrassed wouldn’t suffice. I wanted to die! Yet standing next to me was my sweet little boy smiling and telling me all about his day in his toddler gibberish so I had to smile, nod and get the hell out of there.

Day Five/Six/Seven:

It was the weekend and Daddy was home, more help. Yeah! I was back to being optimistic and I had gone out to buy the Gina Ford potty in a week book.I read the first page which is a list of things Buba should be doing before I even start potty training. He couldn’t do one of them. Ooops. Stubborn at heart, I was going to get through this, after all I came this far. In reality I hadn’t got any closer to getting him on the potty and having less accidents since day one. Nevertheless, I was not going to fail. Daddy could devote his attention to solely Buba this weekend. We did fare better for awhile but only cause we sat him on the potty pretty much all day. Of course we were going to catch him pooing and peeing in the potty if he never got off.

By Monday I decided while I am still breastfeeding Missy Moo and Buba continued to not show signs of understanding I was going to back off and try again in a month or so. Wish me luck. I will post Potty Training Attempt Two when I am brave enough to attempt it.

The Potty! after 7 days you can see only 10 successes ;(