Potty training.
Oh, how the thought used to make me shudder.
I have been blessed with having a child who adapts pretty easily. Switching from a bottle to a sippy cup. Switching from formula to milk. Going to daycare. Sleeping in a toddler and then a “big kid” bed. I would experience mild trepidation at the thought of each change to the norm but Claire never took long to get used to each one.
But then there loomed potty training. I dreaded it. I wondered how I would know for certain that she was ready. How to find that balance between encouraging her to pee in a potty and/or toilet and not pushing her too hard that I ended up scarring her. Similarly, how to find that balance between being understanding when she had an accident and showing enough displeasure that she would pay closer attention to the cues her body was trying to show her. Should I use a potty or a toilet, or a mixture of the two? Should I use pull-up diapers or switch her completely into underwear? How would we ever leave the house during that first period of time that she was learning? A lot of experienced parents said they had booked a week or two off and used that time for potty training, but that option didn’t really work for us.
I kept putting it off. Then I started encouraging her more, by having pull-ups on her when we went out somewhere but otherwise having her in underwear.
I don’t really know why I was so scared. Like all of those other changes, Claire has adapted pretty easily to this one as well. That’s not to say that she is 100% potty trained, but she does seem to be well on her way.
Daycare helped a ton. I had left a bunch of underwear and some changes of clothes in her bin and the teachers started putting her in underwear during the day and they kept encouraging me to just put underwear on her in the morning to bring her in. I hesitated as images floated through my mind of me being late for work over and over and over again while I dealt with a toddler who was having a multitude of accidents first-thing in the morning.
But then… I don’t know what happened. Something clicked in my brain and I just decided that I had to bite the bullet and make the full change. Claire would wear a pull-up to bed, but then she would be in underwear the whole time she was up. That’s still the case – she’s not quite ready to be without a diaper in bed all night – but otherwise, it’s underwear all the time. There has been the occasional day here and there when she has had a bunch of accidents and I wonder what the hell happened, but most of the time, she doesn’t have any accidents at all. She still needs prompting, but less and less so. We decided to use a combination of potty and regular toilet so that she isn’t totally dependent on one or the other. Besides, they use toilets at daycare, although they are much smaller. The potty stays in the living room and she has a little seat that goes on the regular toilet in the bathroom so that she doesn’t have to worry about falling in. I also have a little plastic Dora toilet seat that folds up and goes in a plastic package that I carry around in my purse so that it’s not a big deal if she needs to use the toilet when we are out somewhere.
As she has done so many times before, my child has amazed me with her adaptability to everything that life throws at her. These days, she often says, “I’m a big girl” (or, in her words, “I a big gurrl”).
Yes, sweetie, you most certainly are.
