A Bathroom Break

I have been rather quiet this week, amidst the exhaustion of double potty training duty. After roughly 11 hours of running back and fourth to the toilet each day, cleaning up pee pee leaks down the side of the potty and wiping lots of adorable little tushies, I felt like crawling under the covers with a bottle of wine and a trashy television show- actually, I feel like doing that every day, regardless.

One week in, however; I am almost forgetting what it was like to change diapers. Don’t get me wrong, asking my kids every 20 minutes if they need to go pee pee is not a walk in the park, either. And neither is the entire routine of getting to the potty, manipulating their clothing, washing and drying hands, and all the bargaining in between. But, I feel like I have assisted them with gaining a little more independence and self-pride in accomplishing such an important skill. Plus, I do not miss hoisting my kicking kids onto that changing table one bit.

Here are my potty training necessities.

This little contraption has been a total lifesaver for us during the process. After two days on lock down, I knew we had to get out of the house, but I did not want to set my kids up for failure by taking them too far and risking an immediate accident. I took this portable potty folded neatly in my bag to the park, and set up shop behind a covered tree when they asked to go to the bathroom. I did not attempt this initially, but after I felt like they were starting to identify when they needed to use the potty, I was confident enough to get out of the house. Now it lives in our car for summer road trip emergencies.

This book was really the framework of the process for us. While I veered from her recommendation not to use rewards during the initial training, I felt like her theory was manageable, honest, sometimes crude (which I needed during the messy moments), and overall gave me the confidence to keep moving forward when I questioned myself and their readiness. She encourages the naked approach to potty training, something my kids were all too excited to oblige. She also recommends forgoing underwear for at least the first month while the children are retraining their muscle memory away from diapers, learning to hold in their bowel movements, and experiencing that accidents are no longer comfortable and contained. Also- be sure to check out the chapter on ‘Poop.’

While my children are open to using both the big toilet and the small potty seat, I found this potty helpful in making the transition a bit more seamless. It looks exactly like the big potty, with a flusher and all, and I think it helped “shrink” down the scale of such a large endeavor.

Now, keep in mind that I am no expert. We are still running back and forth to the bathroom, and struggling to remember to break for the potty while watching television, but we are very much on our way!