So today, I am going to share with you my journey and that of my son Aiden, who is a bit stubborn, hard-headed, energetic, and one of the sweetest little boys I could have been blessed with. But potty training him has been an absolute struggle for us.
How it started, it was the beginning of summer, and he started to show signs of being ready to potty train, things like going to a corner or by himself before going poop in his diaper and telling us right away when he had (Win).
My first mistake in this process was trying to do it over a two-day weekend and send him to daycare (which was very encouraging about helping). Well, needless to say, it did not work. For starters, my older son and husband were around all weekend, and Aiden was easily distracted; he did not want to miss out on what they were doing. Then sending him to daycare on Monday was also a dismal fail, as they tried really hard with him all day but had no success.
So I threw in the towel and said we would come back to it another time when I have a three-day weekend. Second mistake.
I let a little over a month go by because that is what everything I found online said to do. So we had a weekend that we were going to my family’s cabin, and my mom was going to be there. I thought it would be a great help to have someone else around to help keep an eye on him. Third mistake.
We went to the cabin and that first day was going fairly well, we had some successful #1’s in the morning. By the afternoon, I knew he had to go poop, but he was nervous and was holding it. We only have one bathroom in our cabin, and you wouldn’t know it; Mom also had to go to #2. So I asked grandma and my oldest to watch him for me for a couple of minutes, knowing he would not have an accident if he were near people.
Fourth mistake. I left them with Aiden for maybe 3 minutes, I come out to find my oldest and grandma, but no Aiden. I panicked, asked Caleb (my oldest) where Aiden was, and started sprinting around the corner, and there he was, pooping his pants. Epic fail. So, after constant failures for the rest of Saturday, I decided there were too many distractions, and grandma was of no help. Let’s pause and try again later.
Fast-forward another month. One day, Aiden wakes up and says he wants to wear underwear (win). I said, “GREAT! Let’s do it! “It was a school day, so I was sure to pack a bunch of extra pants and underwear for him to school, and I was like, “Okay, this is it. He is ready to do this himself. Fifth Mistake.
After three straight weeks of consistent accidents at home and daycare, I was getting to my wit’s end, so I did a bunch of research online and found a potty training consultant. I purchased her guide and started implementing some of the changes. It was coming to Memorial Day weekend, and I decided to stay home; I had an extra day off, so 4 straight days of potty training at home without my husband and other son to distract us. I followed the potty training consultant’s guide for the most part. Aiden was already getting the hang of the pee in the potty, so I felt some of the items she suggested were more for beginners; we were 3+ weeks in.
4 Day weekend: Day 1: only two pee accidents. Day 2: had three accidents but our first successful poop in the potty, so things were looking up! Day 3: tested me; he had multiple accidents ( I stopped keeping track because I was getting so frustrated). Day 4: accident free. Light at the end of the tunnel, right? Wrong. The only real success from that weekend was sleeping through the night and napping accident-free. So a win, but not the big WIN I was shooting for.
Tuesday back to Daycare: Our daycare procedure is they do not clean out the soiled clothes before stuffing them in a bag to be sent home (at the time, I was unaware of the CDC requirement for them to do so). So day after day, I was getting two-three bags of clothes sent home, completely full of poop. Yep, you read that right. Now you might be thinking what I was, if they are already in the bathroom, why don’t they just dump the poop out of the underwear in the toilet? They are already wearing gloves, they were right there, and it will help him see where it is supposed to go. Sixth mistake– Assuming I knew what daycare was doing. After weeks and weeks of this, I discovered that once he had soiled himself, they put him on the changing table, took off his clothes, and shoved them in the bag. They did not take him to the bathroom and deal with the situation in that area.
Now, I am in no way hating on my daycare people, they were immensely patient with him and almost never put him in a pull up. So I tried my best to remain calm and not rock the boat. The last thing I wanted was for them to force him to wear pull-ups again and lose all the traction we had gained. But at the end of the day, it was super gross to try to get dried poop off his clothes when I feel like they could have just dumped most of it in the potty. Seventh mistake, was not speaking up to my daycare and asking why they were not doing what I thought they should be.
Here we are 12+ weeks into this process, the same thing over and over. Daycare sends home all the poop, and I have to deal with it. Meanwhile at home, Aiden finally turns a corner. I made a potty chart, very simple, said “Aiden’s potty chart,” and then I made some poop emoji stickers wearing sunglasses. Now, hindsight is always 20/20, but I wish I had done this much sooner. It took us a few days to get success at home before he could finally put a poop sticker on the chart, but once we did, he was very excited! It was a great motivator for him and gave us another way to phrase asking him to go potty. “Aiden, is it time to put a poop sticker on the chart?” seemed to get a much better response from him. We finally had one entire weekend with only one accident. In my mind I’m like okay Aiden we got this, we are over the hurtle. Daycare Monday accident, and days 2 and 3 only one accident. Thursday… Halloween… in a full Spider-Man costume that daycare wanted him to wear all day. Needless to say, I was very nervous, so I brought the costume with us and made him go potty as soon as we arrived because I knew he had to pee. After success and his primary teacher present, I reluctantly put him in his costume. At pick up, there are two accidents sitting there waiting for me. My heart sank a little, hoping we did not go back to where we started. Friday, only one accident, cheers to Aiden.
And finally, a weekend with me at the cabin and completely accident-free! (Win)
Monday, back to daycare. one to two accidents every day.
I finally got myself a backbone, I asked the girls at daycare what exactly was going on? He is doing great at home, communicating with me, running to the bathroom, all the right things. They tell me that he will poop his pants and laugh about it.
So this behavior is not an uncommon thing in kids, they do something wrong and they laugh about it because they just want to get a laugh out of you, not understanding this was not okay. So the next day I decided, I told the daycare workers that it was time to implement some repercussions for this action. I asked them to put him in a timeout if he pooped his pants because I felt we were far enough along in progress at home to where he knew when he had to poop, and his actions were intentional.
Day one of time-out enforcement, First poop accident of the day, he was put in time-out he was devastated, he was missing out on the fun activities and his teachers we not laughing or making light of the situation. This set off a light bulb for him. He has never had an intentional poop in his pants since that one time-out. Does he still have the occasional accident? Yes, but it is almost always unintentional; in the bathroom, potty line or pants just got in the way. He is no longer getting the enjoyment of pooping his pants and thinks he can giggle his way out of the teachers being upset.
I tell this story because it is not like most potty training successes. It took weeks and weeks of work, and it is still not 100% success.
I had plenty of Tears and plenty of thinking I was a failure. Concerns that maybe he has a learning disability.
So I wanted to let you all know that not all kids learn all in three days. and just because they don’t does not make you a failure. It does not mean there is anything wrong with your child. It’s just life, and so many people have painted this picture of potty training in 3 days, and that is not a reality for all people. And it’s not even for the people that say it works in three days; there are still accidents, and there are still situations where you have to clean up the poop, and that is okay; things like this do not happen overnight.
Don’t worry, you will get through! Keep on trucking!
For more common daycare Potty training policies
For more Tips and tricks for potty training a stubborn boy
Potty Training Consultant I used to help