There is a renowned child psychologist or some such “ist” who writes a syndicated column carried by our local newspaper. I cannot remember his name, which is just as well since I am about to misquote him dreadfully, but I do know he has written several books and is considered an expert. His picture printed just above his column must have been taken the day his hemorrhoids flared, or right after he took a sip of vending machine coffee. He has the sourest look on his face. He looks like someone more likely to abuse your children than counsel them. Supposedly he has grown children, all psychologically whole, and productive citizens, but that is by his account. I have no proof of this. I have never seen him pictured with any sour faced children purported to be his offspring.
Even though I seldom agree with him, I do read his column from time to time just so I can roll my eyes and say, “Yeah, right. Like that would work with my kids!”. Of course, I am not an expert. I would not even say I am an expert with my own children. I am just a regular mom doing her best to raise her children well. But here is the point of this little tirade. Potty training. I am on my third and last (I believe) episode of potty training. The Expert believes we have become a nation of potty training wimps. Apparently children were potty trained at a much younger age when our parents were in diapers. The secret, he maintains, is to let your child go without a diaper for a week. Then when he messes you can put him on the potty. After no more than a week the little darling will understand and start using the potty. There is probably more to it than this, but that is the skeletal version.
OK, well when my parents were in nappies they didn’t have any kind of stay dry lining, so maybe he has a point there. Grandma probably got really tired of Cloroxing all those smellies and was very motivated to move on to toilet training. But in regards to Dr. Expert’s method, I do not think a week of having poop and pee on my sofa is going to do Mommy any good psychologically. And our grandmothers were home all day. They didn’t have to worry about baby pooping in the minivan, or peeing in the dance studio while big sister practiced plies. My bigger objection, however, is that I have learned something important from my first two children. They control their own bladder and bowels. Yes, that is shocking news, isn’t it? They themselves have the ultimate control over when they poop and pee, and where.
When my daughter was little, I tried just about every version of potty training, beginning at an optimistic 18 months. She understood. She didn’t care. She didn’t want to use the potty. Messy pants? OK. Pee on the rug? OK. Whatever. I didn’t give up, but I made no progress. The pediatrician told me not to worry, just keep sitting her on the potty, and when she was ready, she would be “trained” rapidly. At about 2 ½ years of age, just as I feared she would wear diapers walking down the aisle, I tempted her with pretty “big girl panties”. I explained that she had to use the potty to wear these, and that if she went poo or pee in her panties, I would throw them in the garbage. She really wanted to wear them. The first day she pooped big time in her pants. She watched me throw them away. That was the last accident we had.
Wow! It doesn’t happen young, but I had the answer! Then my son came along. I went down the same path. I familiarized him with the potty. If he should happen to let something loose while sitting, I would praise him loftily. Still, he really had no interest in getting to the potty whenever the urge to go hit him. I tried big boy pants. I explained just as I had to my daughter that the dinosaur underwear would go in the garbage if he went poo in his pants instead of the potty.
The first day he did a huge doo. I made a big show of throwing them away. I put on another pair.
He did another doo. I made a big show of throwing them away. I put on another pair.
He peed. He took them off and threw them away himself. Then he went to his drawer and told me I needed to buy some more.
When I told him “No more, you will have to wear a diaper if you won’t use the potty,” he just looked at me and said, “OK, dyepah.” He was almost three years old when he decided on his own that he liked the potty after all, and overnight he was “trained”.
Now I am working on my youngest son. He will be three in March, but he is much more “babyish” than the other two were at this age. Still, I have been going through the routine. Oh, he gets it. He just doesn’t want to. Last night before bath time, I had him on the potty. “Go pee pee!” I encouraged. “Just like Jackie and Julia, go pee in the potty!” He grinned happily, pointed down between his legs to the water and cried “Pee pee!” Except he hadn’t done anything. Eventually I put him in the bath. He stood there proudly and said “Mommy, wah dee!” (“Watch this!”). He then proceeded to grab his penis and direct a spray of urine across the tub, laughing the whole time.
Recently he has decided he does not like any poo or pee in his diaper at all, which I take as a good sign. Before he could swish around in it all day and not care. The down side is that he keeps taking off his own diaper and handing it to me. Today he marched up to me naked and handed me a diaper full of chocolate nuggets.
Uh oh. “I’ll bet some escaped!” I thought.
Sure enough, as I retraced his steps he had left a doo doo nugget trail, like Hansel and Gretel in the forest.
“Jerry, help! Jamie spilled nuggets!”
My husband ran to assist as I quickly secured and swabbed the poopetrator.
“Wait, you missed one!” I said, pointing at a Hershey’s kiss size brown ball of poop, camouflaged well in the multi-colored runner of the hallway.
“Move, move!” he shouted. “You’re on one! No, not there, you’re smooshing it into the carpet!”
Just now as I am writing this Jamie handed me another loaded one. Fortunately this one appears to be fully intact. But what now? Teach him how to put on a clean diapie himself? That would be helpful. I am not stressed about this at all, despite the day’s poopisode. After all, the first two taught me that they will go when they are ready, and not before. I can go through the routine, but the timing is up to them. They will respond to motivation, or will motivate themselves, when they are ready. I’m not really sure how our grandmother’s did it. I mean, bowel control is not new. So maybe we really are a nation of potty training wimps. Maybe we need to send our babies to potty training boot camp. I don’t know. I just know I am less stressed by letting the kids develop at their own pace, and it seems to suit them better, too.
So Dr. Expert I-can-raise-your-kids-better-than-you-can will just have to shake his head in disgust at me, and continue to glare sour facedly at the world from his throne of newsprint superiority. Wimpiness seems to work OK for our family, and we’re not going to doo it any other way.