Potty training hiatus
Back in February, I was very excited when Baby Brother started going to our neighbors home daycare. His new teacher asked if she could potty train him along with her son who was also one year old and I said “go for it!” His older sister had potty trained early with some success and I was hoping to have it easier with him, but he wasn’t exhibiting any of the signs his sister had exhibited at 9 months - staying dry overnight and going on a regular schedule. I pretty much knew what time I had to plop her on the potty. But with Baby Brother, I couldn’t make any sense of his schedule (or lack of it) and to add to that, a stinky diaper doesn’t seem to bother him. Left to my own devices, I would not attempt potty training him at this time, but infected with his teachers enthusiasm, I was all ready to go. And hopeful too.
Starting potty training was exciting. For all of us. Baby Brother learned to sit on the potty and very patiently too. Everyday I would exchange notes with his teacher about how he did at home and how he did at school. He seemed to be cooperating and we were just waiting for the breakthrough.
One day, the first pee was caught in the potty to great fanfare. His teacher took a picture. We celebrated. Baby Brother seemed happy and accomplished. Every so often we would catch some pee in the potty and celebrate. But more often than not (at least, at home), he would get up from the potty to play before the long-awaiting pee came rushing out. After many accident mop ups, I moved him to the toilet seat. “Gotcha!”, I thought. He can’t get down by himself. So he stayed put on the toilet. He also got unhappy about his lack of freedom. And I also suspect we may have missed some opportunities to celebrate pee trickles. But we kept at it. For a while. During this time, poop in the bathtub became the routine. Perhaps it was his way of punishing me for keeping him stranded on the toilet seat. “Ah poopoo”, he would call out excitedly seconds after I move him from the toilet seat to the bathtub!
While all this was going on, getting ready for work in the morning was taking longer than usual. So one day, I just didn’t bother. No potty, no toilet seat. I’ve had enough. I want all messes to be contained within diapers.
Now he’s almost 18 months old, his teacher who’s been searching for solutions to the boys potty-training dilemmas says now’s the time to grab the issue by the horns. She had success with her older son and is confounded by her younger son and Baby Brother’s resistance to the program. “We have to be on the same page” she reminds me. I agree as images of frenzied weekday mornings compounded with floor mopping and mess cleaning flashed across my mind. But if she’s willing to do, if she can do it, then I will do whatever it takes.
So the potty has come back out. All I need to do is say the word “potty” and Baby Brother marches right over and plops on it. I’m proud of him. But so far, not one drop of anything. That frustrates me. So until I have the ’strategy’ conversation with his teacher to put us on the same page (in 2 weeks), I’m not going to bother doing anything. Except leave the potty right out within sight. And maybe Baby Brother will just voluntarily walk over, sit and do the business I’ve been looking forward to. That’s my dream.
