Training Days. Warning: Toilet talk to follow!

We are at the age now when "Potty Training" has become a hot topic. The first questions that come to my mind, as with all of the other milestones that have come onto the radar in these early years, are: When & How? My warning to new parents is to get use to the answers, as they seem to be the same each time.

When: it varies based on the individual child, parental philosophy, net family income, eye color, side of the street you live on, etc… And of course there is “no need to be concerned if your child takes a little longer to catch on” which I’m sure is a canned response developed by doctors to answer dads who automatically start getting antsy asking, “does this mean that my child is not in the top 1% intelligence in the world?”

How: anyone you ask will tell you different, so pick from one of the dozens of theories and go with it. It often gives me the feeling that we’re just “winging it”, but Sydney doesn’t usually feel that we’re as lost as I do.

First things first: Sydney found us a used training toilet at a garage sale for $1! Given the retail price-tag of around $20 I feel pretty confident that this move alone places us in the upper echelon of the potty training elite. With the equipment requirements taken care of, Sydney found an article on timing that listed some of the signs that a child may be ready to start training and from it we were both lead to conclude that we’d be better off waiting, as the article warned that prematurely starting the process is not only frustrating to parent and child, but really doesn’t do much to speed up the end result. With that in mind we placed the little green Baby Bjorn trainer in the guest bathroom across from the real thing. From time to time either of us will have Jameson sit down on the trainer with his clothes on and explain to him that this is where he should come if he has to go “pee-pee” (which Sydney expressed concern over calling it, since he has already come to know the associated body part by the same name. While I can understand why she would worry that the noun/verb usage confusion that this could cause, I assured her that plenty of boys prior to ours have been able to work through it). Good enough for some soft training in my opinion, a full plan to be developed later.

Then one night last week as I undressed him for bath time he said to me, “Sit Potty?” Thinking that this was another practice session I said, “Sure, let’s sit on the potty” and so he did (which in and of itself is a very funny process that involves backing up, bending down putting his hands on the ground to help push his butt to the correct position before lowering himself down with not nearly as much accuracy as you would expect from such a process). Once he sat, he looked down and actually began to go “pee-pee” in the “potty” (and I do use the term IN lightly as most splashed out onto the floor and rug)! Despite having to work through some aiming issues it was an extremely successful and unexpected outing that I’m not 100% sure wasn’t a wonderful accident. None the less it was certainly an opportunity for Sydney and I to reinforce the behavior as very positive and he seemed to pick up on our excitement.

The next night, after changing an exceptionally stinky diaper, Jameson again asked, “Sit Potty?” To which I excitedly asked, “Do you have to go pee-pee?” Jameson responded, as he does to 90% of the questions we ask him, “dah!”. So I put him down and he ran to the bathroom and assumed the position again, but this time he looked down and nothing happened. He tried for a couple of seconds and then looked up at me and said, “’s broken?” not knowing what to say and doing the best I could not to laugh out loud, I told him that it was OK. He looked up with a confused look and said, “daddy help pee-pee". Unfortunately I couldn’t think of anything to help. I did even try to make running water sounds to see if that would “help go pee-pee”, but I’m thinking that is more of a cue that works by association later on in life, because it did nothing for him. He did get up and down a couple of more times in an attempt to make it happen, as though just sitting on the magic potty was all it took, but unfortunately our second attempt didn’t pan out. It may take some actual training yet.

Another funny thing he’s doing now:
We’re trying to teach him colors, so we regularly ask him what color things are, to which he without hesitation or contemplation proudly shouts, “Geeeen!” no matter what the actual color. We then correct him with the actual color which he disappointedly repeats with some prompting. If he seems to be getting too down on himself I’ll ask him with something that actually is green to help boost his confidence :)