Hiya! I wasn’t sure when I’d be writing this post. We started potty training in the summer. I wanted to be sure we had fully made it before sharing our experience. We used a three-day method, so I figured it couldn’t be that hard…
3 months later, I see things VERY differently. I absolutely do not have any regrets, but it’s definitely been a humbling experience! That being said, I am so glad we toilet trained when we did. Here’s why.
[PS- before we get too deep in the weeds. We potty trained our daughter on the earlier side compared to other U.S. kids. If this topic is bothersome or triggering to you, for ANY REASON- please don’t read. Potty training is not easy, and what it looks like can vary so much from family to family. When we were ready may not be when your family is ready. And that is 110% OK. The intent of this post was not to make folks feel crappy about when they decided the timing was right for their kid. As a pediatrician, I am a child health expert- but you are the expert on your child. I say this to parents all the time in the hospital. And I really, truly believe that.]
Why we trained early:
We wanted to get out of diapers quickly. As a cloth diaper family, I think this is a common motivator- toilet training decreases your laundry by 70%! That was super appealing!! But the other piece of it is definitely sustainability. Our goal was always as few diapers as possible (hence the EC adventures and later cloth diapering, you can read more about that here.)
I am a readiness skeptic. It’s not that I don’t believe the challenges parents are facing with potty training aren’t real- potty training was the hardest thing I’ve done as a parent (and we sleep trained and took multiple red eye flights in the first year.) But I went into it knowing the folks I worked with in Liberia had trained their children for pees by age one, and poops by two. Obviously the challenges facing a parent in Liberia versus a parent in the United States are incredibly different- but I think readiness may be over-emphasized over here.
But also, we saw some signs of readiness. I know, really classy move to contradict myself the next line over. But after an ER trip where she held a ton of pee for 6 hours, I realized ou kid could recognize some feelings around peeing and fullness. She could also sit up much and walk better than when she lost interest in the potty during EC. Because of EC, we (meaning all of us) recognized when she was peeing and pooping, we felt like we could help her get those pees and poops on the potty! She couldn’t physically push her pants down, but we figured if we were training early, we could help her with that (and 3 months in, now she can!)
I wanted to avoid any older toddler battles. I managed to get through one book about potty training, Oh Crap. I honestly didn’t love the tone, and found some of the sexist moments off-putting, but I do think the author is right about one thing- toddler resistance gets more intense around age 2.5, and we really wanted to be done by then. This also tailored my approach- we didn’t make a big deal of it either way. Accidents happened and we cleaned up together. Apart from talking about, reading about, watching some children’s shows, we sort of built it into our daily life. We did add some rewards later, but nothing too wild.
It was summer! This may sound silly, but summer means hot weather, aka perfect commando toddler weather, more outdoor play where pee messes aren’t a problem, and plenty of popsicles and cold drinks to make more pee (for practice.) I highly, highly recommend regardless of your child’s age, if you live anywhere with any kind of seasonality, go for the summer.
Ok, now that we’re done with the why! Next up is the how! I’ll post it later this week!
