The only time I will write about this
A few weeks ago we bought a “pot.” Not pot. A pot. As in a “potty,” but we don’t call it that. It was on sale for $6 (down from $13, booyah), so I figured I might as well grab it since we’d need one eventually.
The pot sat in our bathroom, basically being ignored by JR. Occasionally he would put his stuffed animals on it, but otherwise he paid it little attention.
On Saturday, JR looked up at me and said, “Pot? Sit?” So we took him upstairs, sat him down, read and sang a little until he wanted to stand up, and what should we find? Pee. In the pot.
I was shocked, as was JR who screamed when he saw it. After calming him down and assuring him that this was normal, he said goodbye to it, and we flushed it.
Later that night, as I was reading him his bedtime story, JR kept interrupting to tell me that he had peed on the pot. He seemed both very proud of himself and completely confused as to what was going on.
He made three more visits to the pot on Sunday.
I didn’t expect to even approach toilet training until JR was at least two — he had never showed any interest and I didn’t want to rush it. Meanwhile, diapers aren’t a big deal to me, and JR rarely let me know of any business going on anyway. Shows how much I know.
He’s still not consistent (wet/dirty diapers after nap time and sleeping at night; wet diapers throughout the day, despite visits to the pot) but he’s definitely interested. Me? I have no clue what I’m doing.
I’m not going to chronicle our experiences with this milestone here (at least beyond this post) because I think it’s crossing over into the “too personal” arena, but I’d appreciate any advice or tips you have — particularly those of you who have experience training little boys.
So, in a word: HALP.
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JR will be potty trained when he is ready, so don’t stress about it.
We trained Luke for months and months, starting with introducing the potty around the same age you did. After all our efforts, when it seemed like the boy would never be trained, he was. Luke went from wet underwear one day to no more accidents of any kind, ever.
Good luck!
One more thing to add, because I think this was the turning point for us…
When we were completely frustrated and looking for new guidance, I read that potty training had to be Luke’s project and not ours. So, we relaxed our efforts. We asked in the morning and before bed, but otherwise left it up to Luke to tell us. If he had an accident, we cleaned it up and moved on with little comment.
Once the potty wasn’t the focus of our days, Luke was trained within 2 weeks.
I’ll add – Don’t be surprised if it’s a bit of a passing fad. We had a ton of interest a little before two and early two’s, and then complete hatred and absolutely no interest at all. Ayn was almost 3 before she was open to trying again. Once she was ready, she got the hang of it very quickly. Although she’s in underwear all the time now (other than sleeping) she still has accidents sometimes.
Like Kristi said – It has to be on their terms, and you just have to go with it. So, I’d say follow his lead now… but don’t worry if the interest fades. =)
I totally agree with the other 2 people, let him take the lead. If you want to encourage a little, you can reward success with a sticker or an m&m. The other key thing for us, was to not introduce pull-ups too early. A lot of parent’s go to them quickly, and the child learns they can go in the pull-up just like a diaper. He’ll do it when he’s ready!
I have no experience with this but I like that you’re calling it a pot.
[...] The thing I said I was only going to talk about once has stalled somewhat. There is still interest but much less enthusiasm. [...]