oh potty training, how I loathe thee.
Yes, this blog is about the woes of potty training. Click 'exit' now if you are squeamish; otherwise, proceed.
Morgan turned 3 in February and we've been working on potty training for over a year. Her speech delay has made it difficult; it's hard to potty train when you can't really communicate with your kid. She's also very stubborn and strong willed. Her pediatrician basically told us that the 2 things a toddler can control in life are 'what goes in and what comes out.' So it's been a power struggle to get Morgan to eat new foods (or sometimes just to eat at all) and to want to go on the potty.
This past week all of a sudden Morgan has decided that the potty isn't all that bad! For a solid week we've basically done no diapers or pullups during the day while at home. She has spent half of the time running around naked or wearing 'potty pants' (underwear) and her little potty has ended up in the living room...which is where SHE wants it, so I'm not moving it. I spend most of the day asking her if she needs to potty...and the other half of the day watching her potty.....then cleaning her potty.
And yes, I know they make inserts to fit on a regular toilet so that toddlers can go on the big potty. We have one. It's pink and says 'princess' on it. She rarely uses it. She prefers this little potty from Toys R Us that is almost too small for her. Going in the big potty would be too easy of course; she would rather use the little potty and then watch us clean it out.
You would think that after years of changing poop diapers, poop in the potty wouldn't phase me. I can't stand it. I dry heave and try to hide the disgusted look on my face as I'm carrying a little plastic bowl full of a toddler poo to the bathroom; I don't want her to think she's done something bad. As I gasp for air in between dry heaves I try to tell Morgan what a good job she did and how she can have a 'treat' of chocolate chips as soon as mommy cleans up and composes herself. If Michael is home, I beg him to do the dirty job, but he's not home very often. And I swear Morgan times her poops for when he's at work.
And she poops ALL THE TIME now. It's like she feels that whenever she sits on the potty, she has to work on a poo. So she sits and sits and sits. So I sit and sit and sit and wait for her to be finished. No way am I leaving a pooping toddler unsupervised on a potty on my living room carpet. Then I have to catch her before she tries to pick up her potty to go empty it herself. I have nightmares about the contents of the potty spilling out onto my clean floors. Then I have to catch her and get her cleaned up with potty pants back on before she climbs onto my couch.
It's stressful I tell ya.
And she's not completely potty trained yet. We are still working on 'out of the house training.' Whenever we go somewhere, we put a diaper on her. We went to dinner the other evening and every time she peed in her diaper, she loudly announced it...'Mommy, I just pee peed in my diapy again!'
...ummm okay kid, be quiet and eat your mashed potatoes. Today I decided to try her outside with no diaper. I took her potty out on the porch and we enjoyed the sunshine for 4 hours while she used the potty on the porch. I'll just have to remind my neighbors that I'm from WV and don't know any better.
She still wears a diaper at night and usually wakes up with it dry (woo hoo! she hopefully won't be a bedwetter!) but she doesn't want to take it off and use the potty when she first wakes up. She usually pees in her diaper and then comes to tell me (or takes it off and throws it away herself...ridiculous, I know). But we are getting there!
Do I have any advice on potty training? Yes - wait until they are ready. Don't force the issue. They will eventually be ready. I'm just thrilled that Morgan was ready before she started kindergarten.
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