Never has Elmo looked so menacing. Seriously. Elmo’s smiling face on a potty is a cruel joke for those in the throws of potty training.
We are knee deep in potty training and it isn’t pretty. Jackson refuses to poop on the potty and occasionally drops a raisinet in there, making him feel entitled to a matchbox car. “I DID A BROWN ONE!” he will exclaim. I’m to the point of clarifying poop size for the bribery gift by telling him “It has to be bigger than a grape in order to get a car for pooping on the potty.”
He is going to be 3 in just a few weeks and at this point he will be wearing a diaper for a looooong time. Technically he is in pull-ups now, but who are we kidding? It’s a glorified diaper.
He will pee on the potty (only a toddler-sized one, of course) every time he is put on it, but never asks to go on his own. When I was away at BlogHer, my Mom worked on potty training with him, which was basically training herself to stick him on the pot every 2 hours. He still doesn’t feel the urge to ask or know when to go sit on the potty.
I’ve been pretty laissez-faire about the whole potty training deal, putting him on the potty as much as possible but letting him wear pull-ups and not freaking out about accidents. Which for #2 is guaranteed, because if he was a cartoon there would be squiggly lines all around his stinky self in the corner while he yells at me “I’M NOT POOPING!” Every time I change his diaper we talk about how fun school is and when he goes to the bathroom on the potty he can go to school and have fun. He doesn’t care.
I guess it is somewhat working because he woke up from a rarely-taken nap today yelling for me. I ran upstairs and was horrified with what I found. Jackson, next to his bed, pants around his ankles with poop all up and down his leg. With a HUGE smile he told me: “Mama I made a chocolate one!” I’m going to pretend that somehow he was trying to make it to the toilet.
Have you ever changed an almost 3 year old who is covered in poop? It is not easy and pretty much guarantees that everything in a 10 foot vicinity is going to get coated in poop. It’s like the midas touch, but poop- not gold. Meanwhile, I have the dog trying to eat the pull-up and Sidney trying to “help.” Jackson kept sitting his bare butt down on the tile or the wall until I finally got him in the tub and had to disinfect the entire house. Now, a few hours later, both kids are in bed and I can only laugh at tonight’s experience. I know someday he will be potty trained but man, this is NOT fun!
Any tricks you have for potty training?!
Ha!! I don’t mean to laugh- honestly… I know how nasty it is, but I’ve had at LEAST 5-7 instances of pooping down legs, on the floor, on the clothes, on the couch, and basically everywhere but it’s supposed to go… so I know that moment of “Oh, shit!” (literally.) I’m sorry you had to deal with that, but I promise that someday when he’s totally ready, he’ll “get it.” I didn’t rush it with my girls either and it just eventually clicked. Until then, this is probably not your last messy ordeal! Get your sanitizer ready!!
Jen recently wrote $75 Amazon Gift Card 24-Hour Special FLASH Giveaway!!!
my son was 3 and it was awful but now he goes on the big potty, standing to pee and all. He’s been doing very good and going always in the potty except bedtime for a month or so now and he’s just 3 months past his 3rd bday.. but as his bday got close I felt like you did, so hopefully it’s not too much longer for you either! I was seriously worried he’d always go in his diaper, then when he’d go on the little potty only and flip out on the big one I thought i’d never get him in school. Got through that and he had to go to the 2 yr old class at 3 bc he didn’t know how to stand to pee or get his pants up and down alone.. A couple of weeks later and he got moved to the “big boy class” (he was dissapointed when he got there after all that work to get the potty thing down bc the “big boy class” I had been advertising also contained girls!! lol). Now he’s even having most naps and a few night diapers that are dry!! woo hoo!! And it’s been a few weeks since he’s had poop pants! And I could have dealt with pee for longer but those poop pants had to go! Oh, and during the whole thing I had my mother in law and everyone else letting me know that their kids were potty trained before 2 yrs. So that helped.. lol jk I hope you guys get the hang of it soon and that it gets easier. We used a timer at first with him in underwear all day (yes, he peed on the floor a handfull of times but it worked for us) so I “trained myself” to take him to the bathroom over and over again, then he’d hear it and go, and i’d space it out more and more… But i’d go for the underwear during the day and try to pay attention to when his poop time is if he has one. My son would wake up with poop every morning and it drove me nuts bc he’d wake up, go play, then poop while playing like it didn’t bother him. So now I tell him to poop before bed and we haven’t had poop pants in a couple weeks! yay! baby steps!
While we have definitely had our fair share of disgusting, I took my older daughter entirely out of pullups and diapers just before the babe’s first birthday, which would make the older 3 years and 9 months old. That’s a year and 9 months longer than my “plan” but she had finally made the decision to put all her pee in the potty, and to attempt poop. The first couple weeks, there was a lot of poop in the underwear, but now she’s getting it. And the thing that made all the difference? It was HER CHOICE. For 6 months after her 3rd birthday, we both spent a lot of time crying over pee in places other than the potty. Then I gave up and told myself she wouldn’t go to kindergarten in diapers. Once the pressure was off, she figured it out. It will happen. Good luck.
Erin recently wrote Oh How I Wish She Could Talk
Oh you poor thing! I feel your pain, girl. I’ve been there! Your post is so honest, poop and all. I love it. My son used to REFUSE to go on the cute little toy potty. I’d have him sit there for 45 minutes, WAITING, trying way too hard. He HATED it. I was going insane. And when he HAD to go, he would pretend to want to go play outside, and once he hid in my car, and went #2 in his pants. Hello pull-ups! That was before he was ready. Before baby sister came. He honestly just wasn’t ready! I should have listened to my friend who has 4 kids. She basically said about boys: “Don’t even try at 2, they aren’t ready!” Nothing really CLICKED until he turned 3, then it was like everything worked fabulously. Overnight, he was all trained! You just need to not pressure him 24/7. It’s all about positive feedback. You’re doing great!
jackiehennesse1 recently wrote Feel the burn, ladies
Everywhere I’ve read so far says ‘one day it will just click.’ I’m hoping that’s the case for me as well. I’ve only had two successful potty attempts, other than that, she sits on it, does nothing, then asks to wash her hands. Since she’s 27 months, I’m wondering if I should wait more, it’s just going to aggravate me to keep trying. haha You paint quite the picture of your latest poop episode, I’m sure you handled it like a champ though! Hang in there, you’re doing great!
Courtney Buteau recently wrote Top 10 Maternity Must-Haves
this post made me laugh out loud!! My oldest is 4, had no interest in it and was afraid until he was just past 3.5. We did the 3 day with him at that point and he was done in a day for pee, about 2 weeks for poop. Never an accident, never a mess, he’s too afraid. Done.
My daughter? BWAHAHAHA. She’s 2.5. Wants to sit on the potty all the time but never goes. Asked for underwear the other night, peed on the floor. She just doesn’t understand the urges yet, so I stopped trying. I had been buying pull ups but at 2x the cost of regular diapers, no way, not until she’s using them all the time. I send them to daycare but that’s it. I was a cloth diaper mama and when she suddenly expressed interest in the potty I switched to pullups, but this is going to be a much slower, more drawn out process for her I can see. I thought about returning to cloth diapers to save money, but I don’t know – I want to keep momentum moving forward.
Good luck…. potty training is officially my least favorite part of raising a child thus far. UGH!
Michele C. recently wrote Insomnia and Taming the Paper Clutter #nablopomo
Oh, Joanna, I hate to laugh but the image of you trying to clean up with the dog trying to eat the diaper and Sidney trying to help you is just too funny! Potty training is quite the ordeal, huh? Hope it clicks with Jackson soon and you never have to go through that again (until it’s Sidney’s turn…!?).
Jane – MomGenerations.com recently wrote Tansy the Snuggle Monster
This is a scary subject. G just turned 2 so I think we are ready to start trying. I see a lot of posts on potty training in my future. Even without potty training we have had several poop messes similar to yours and we cloth diaper. Oh joy!
candice recently wrote Herbed Risotto | Tasty Tuesday Recipe Swap
Joanna you know my potty training philosophy…..and I think you just got a dose of how it came about for me! Mommy trauma! You gave me potty training flashbacks while I read your post !(though I was laughing, it’s so funny when it’s not you own kid..sorry!)
Elizabeth Atalay recently wrote Giving Tuesday Helps To Balance Out Black Friday & Cyber Monday
Okay my suggestion, is to wait and let him take the lead. I will tell you that I tried to force potty training on Hayley and it ended in a trip to the ER because she was deathly afraid of going #2 on the potty. I told her it was okay to go in the diaper, just to get her to go, but I pushed it so much to go on the potty, that she wouldnt go anymore at all. I say take it one day at a time and it will click! Promise!
mel recently wrote LifeProof iPhone 4 and 4S Waterproof, Indestructible Case Review-Giveaway
I feel you!!! We are STILL have a hard time with Drew who is 5 and 1/2!!! UGH! It’s a battle! Good luck with everything. DM me your address and I’ll mail you some potty charts. See if Jackson likes those. Seems to motivate Drew to try and get to a star for a reward.
Kristin Wheeler (MamaLuvsBooks) recently wrote Shop Til You Drop Black Friday Gift Card Giveaway
I have no advice. All I can say is good luck. Benjamin is obsessed with his toddler potty…because it has Lightening McQueen on it. He sits on it 3 or 4 times a day and just plays with the “flusher” that makes a car revving sound. Of course he isn’t even 2, so I’m not worried about this at all right now. But we’ll see what happens in a year! I may be writing posts like this!!
melissa recently wrote Thankful Thursday
Girl I feel your pain. Nellie pooped on the floor of her bedroom every single night for about two and a half weeks. She finally stopped. She’s still pooping in her Pull Up for the most part which is frustrating but is better than on the damn floor. We are just sort of trying to be patient and let her figure it out on her own..