Mummascribbles – Our toilet training journey has begun! – Mummascribbles

We initially started our toilet training journey a while ago. We bought Zach a potty, we explained what it was for and he used it a few of times but quickly became disinterested. I think it was more feeling the pressure of having to perform. Then we received some potty training aids for review and whilst they were good, we were still getting nowhere. Whilst the potty has remained in place since, I put the full training to a halt, just asking him if he wanted to go to the toilet at bedtime or when I was changing his pull ups. No pressure if he didn’t. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t.

We started to find that he much preferred using the actual toilet and luckily we’d bought a potty that had a detachable seat so could easily pop it on for him to sit on. The main base of the potty simply became a step.

Fast forward to about a month ago and he decided he wanted to try and pee like Daddy, standing up and aiming into the loo. This was progress and he started doing it more and more. Again, there was no pressure on him, if he decided that he no longer wanted to, I wasn’t going to force him because that is the worst thing you can do.

A week last Thursday, I ended up taking the day off work because he had Impetigo and wasn’t allowed in nursery. I used this day as an opportunity and I put him in pants. I’d bought them a while ago and I just went for it. We sat down and read the Potty Training book I’d been sent and he was really involved and seemed to be taking it all in. I repeated two things to him several times:

1. If you need a wee or a poo, you tell mummy or daddy or nannie
2. You don’t go to the toilet in your pants

After the repetition, I questioned him on it.

Me: What do you do if you need a wee or a poo?

Zach: Tell mummy or daddy or nannie.

Me: And what do you not do?

Zach: Go in my pants.

Again, I asked these questions a few times and by then I was certain that he’d taken it in.

So, in pants he was. I asked him every half an hour if he needed the toilet. He would often say no and so I made it into something fun or made it involve what he wanted to do next. I’d race him to the toilet. I’d be going myself and therefore would he like to go too, and when he said for example, can I go on the trampoline, I said yes but he needed to do a wee first.

It started working. He was going regularly. He was getting his sticker rewards and he was oh so proud.

We had to go to the Doctor’s for some treatment for the Impetigo and I risked it. I left him in pants! I couldn’t believe I was doing it but he’d done so well, I didn’t on that day really want to put him back into pull ups. I knew that the doctors had a toilet and I knew that the shopping centre just over the road where the pharmacy is also had one.

Of course, the doctor was running late, 25 minutes in fact and after around half an hour, I noticed Zach jiggling a bit. I asked him if he wanted to go to the toilet before we saw the doc and he said yes. So off we went and he did a wee. YES!!

After the docs, we went across the road to the shopping centre and this is where stupid mummy made a mistake. You see, toilet training isn’t just training the mind of the toddler in learning to control the bladder. It is also the training for the parent to remember that they are not wearing pull ups and therefore need taking the toilet regularly. I forgot. Instead of heading straight to the toilets, we went to get his prescription and as we stood in Boots, my little man looked at me and said “mummy, I’ve done a wee”. I felt so bad. I felt awful. He had done so well and I had forgotten. It was only a small amount but enough that I sadly had to put him into the pull up I’d taken with us in case we needed it. But, he wasn’t in it for long. As soon as we got home, he was straight out of it and back into pants where he continued to pee regularly, on the toilet for the remainder of the day. I was one proud mumma!

This day was a major breakthrough and so it’s been all systems go since. Last week was really the start of the serious training. He is still going between pull ups and pants depending on the circumstance at that time. At home and at mum’s he’s mostly in pants, wearing pull ups only for car journeys and if we are out and about. Because he needs a lot of reminding, we can’t just move straight to full time pants! I don’t want him to have regular accidents in case it starts making him feel bad about the whole thing. He definitely started improving though and has been pleased as punch with himself, just like he was in this photo when we first put him in pants!

This week has had even more major breakthroughs. He has started asking to go to the toilet. Yes, really, he has. I am so bloody proud of him. Not only that, but he has also been telling us when he needs a poo, but not just right as he’s doing it, it’s been with fair warning. He doesn’t always go on the toilet. If he’s feeling adverse to it, I just let him do it in his pull up (it’s been in the evening and in the morning when he hasn’t yet made it into pants. I’m still against forcing him to go on the toilet because I don’t want him to turn against it. It has to be his decision to go, we can just encourage him to do so.

On Friday morning, we were upstairs while I was getting ready, only at that point I was reading him a story, and he told me he needed a poo. I wasn’t wholly convinced that it wasn’t just a ploy to get downstairs (where our bathroom is), but he was insistent so I took him down. The other half was just about to get in the shower so we disturbed him and Zach popped himself onto the loo. He did a wee, sat there for a while and then suddenly…plop! He did one. I was so proud that even though he was in a nappy, he still told me and he did it in enough time to get to the toilet. He was so happy with himself. I then spoke to my mum who’d had him in pants all day except when they went to the shops and he’d done brilliantly with just one accident. He even did another poo on the toilet 🙂

I have no doubt that this is going to be a lengthy process. He has quite a regular bladder and still is a little iffy about whether he wants to use the toilet. But, we have made a serious start. Progress has been made and most importantly, he is very proud of himself every time! We do need nursery to get on board with us a bit more as every person we tell seems to fail to pass on the message. However, he is spending more time in the pre-school class now as they are getting him ready to move up next month (I’m not ready to talk about that yet!) and they ask the kids in there a lot more if they want to go to the toilet. And he has often told them yes! I’m going to drop the manager an email to pass on so that everyone knows we are at this stage. I need everyone who spends their days with him to be on board with us.

I am now a complete advocate of waiting until they are ready. When we tried months ago, he was not ready. He has shown us now that he is ready. He has done it in his own time and no pressure has been put on him to get trained. I am so, so proud of how well he has done these last couple of weeks.

Tags: Parenting, Toddler, toilet training