Just Say 'NO' to Potty Pants
Apr 26 '00
A recent conversation in my house…
“Mommy, I want Superman underwear”.
“Well honey, that means you have to use the big boy seat.”
”Then I don’t want Superman, I want Toy Story.”
“It doesn’t matter who you want, you still have to use the big boy seat.”
Sound familiar? It seems that right after you get them to sleep through the night, make a dent in the thumb sucking department and get them to eat real food you are hit with the reality that with each passing day your child’s diapers are getting smaller and smaller. Oh sure, you can buy training pants which are in theory supposed to teach a child to “go potty”. Unless my kids are aliens, that never worked. The always ended up having accidents since it took forever for them to pull down their pants and then the training pants. I tried to think like a child… “Ok, she wants me to sit on the big thing and poop… no way.. I’ll fall in. She wants me to pee in the toilet… no way… that white thing with the hole in it is gonna smash my winkie”.
My boys were a snap to potty train when it came to urinating but “doin’ the poo” was a different story. Each of them went through different phases ranging from slinging to holding. Here’s “Freak369’s Unofficial Guide to Potty Training Phases”.
Slinging: Having a firm grasp on the expelled mass then chucking it across the room. Culprit: Simon
Possession: (Culprit: Ian) Little Ian refused to flush the toilet after doing his business because he didn’t understand where it went. This led to many discussions and my resulting knowledge of the sewage system.
Holding: When a child refuses to poop. No amount of coaxing will help. This usually ends up with an enema or a very unpleasant doctors visit. A child’s laxative like Senocot can help but it can make the situation worse when the child depends on it or it is given too often.
Faking: This was Roderick’s favorite trick. He would close the bathroom door and throw toys in the toilet to simulate the sound of “doin’ the poo” then flush the toilet. I caught on after the plumber retrieved a myriad of Toy Story figures from the drainpipe.
Potty Pants: The result of not finding the booster seat quick enough or just a plain old ‘booty blow out’. This also covers “skid marks”.
Regardless of how you tackle the situation, potty training is a trying lesson in life. Some people try to train their child too early, before it is humanly possible for a child to have that type of control. Some argue that girls are by far easier to train and others say boys learn faster. All I know is that I do one complete load of nothing but kids underwear a week. Superman, Toy Story, Batman, Power Rangers, racecars, Pokeman, Scooby Doo, WWF and Star Wars. At least five of each design with little initials of each boy written on the tags.
My Advice
No one wants to feel pressured into doing anything. Put yourself in the child’s shoes. For at least two years you’ve been pooping and peeing in your pants and all of a sudden the rules change, now you are suppose to climb up on a big white thing and let loose into a hole.
Whatever you do don’t force the issue. This is a sure fire way to end up with a kid who will not go on the pot. He will hold it, go in the corner or have an accident in regular underwear. You have to build up their self-esteem and praise them when they make it to the bathroom in time and if they do have an accident just say, “At least you tried”. Don’t say, “Try harder to get there next time” since that adds some pressure to the situation.
Making the choice between diapers, training pants and underwear is your personal choice. I don’t like the training pants since they, in a round about way, say that it is still o.k. to poop or pee in your pants. I switched straight to cotton underwear and potty breaks through the day. I let them run around in just underwear so that if they had to go it would be a piece of cake. When nighttime rolled around I had them go potty before bedtime and then once during the night. We had a few accidents and couple of wet sheets but all in all it was better than months of training pants and the cost that comes with it.
Deciding when to potty train should really depend on your child’s feeling towards it. If the child has encouragement and shows signs that it’s time to move out of the diapers then be happy but don’t expect miracles. I have known plenty of kids that took two steps forward and three steps back. Yes, you have to have confidence in the child but not too much. Don’t plan to be in the car for more than 10 minutes at a time during the first two weeks of training. Don’t expect your child to tell you when he or she has to go to the bathroom. I learned that the hard way. Solution? I bought each of my sons a watch and set it with an alarm to go off every 30 minutes. When the alarm went off they would usually let me know what was going on. Of course this was after the first few weeks. It never failed that we would forget to take off the watch so I would hear the beeping in the middle of the night and snicker.
I chose not to offer rewards such as a treat or a trip to the park if they had a good day potty training. That would lead to total chaos. I will admit that I did offer my oldest five M & M’s each time he made it to the pot and did his business. All that did was empty the candy jar in two days when he figured out that if he went to the bathroom every five minutes he could collect his reward. We settled out of court, he could get a $10.00 toy when he was completely potty trained. I let him pick out the toy he wanted and put it on the shelf in the bathroom. Less than a month later he looked at me with a raised eyebrow and said “Gimme the toy mummy, I am done”.
Keep your cool and stay calm. When the time is right it will happen, even if it feels like forever. I think I still have dents in my butt from sitting on the edge of the tub saying “Come on, you can do it, push.” Come to think of it, that sounds an awful lot like childbirth…. and that is a whole different review.
Thanks for your time… Freak :]~
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