Operation Potty Train the Toddler

It's all about 'where' though.

Our son is two & a half- high time for some big boy pants, I say.

We’ve been talking to him about the potty for months now. We bought the potty seat.  We read Everyone Poops & discussed at great length. We let him “flush the poopies” from his diaper.

And we were making some slow progress.  He really liked talking about the potty at least. But the Potty Sticker Chart remained pretty bare, with two lonely stickers.

Over the holidays my mother-in-law shared with us her tried-and-true method- let him run around with no pants for a week.  He’ll be so uncomfortable with the idea of going into mid-air, he’ll want to use the potty.

Sounded shocking. We already think of our kids as being a bit feral. But she potty trained four kids, & none of them wet their pants (as far as I know, anyway).  And it would be so nice to cut back to one diaper-clad babe-in-arms.  Not to mention reducing our carbon footprint.

Desperate measures are called for.  So today we decided to give it a whirl.

It’s January, so we cranked up the heat and put him in a sweater & fleece, with socks.  Quite an outfit, I tell you.  The view got pretty weird at times.  We trailed him all day long, repeating, “Need to go yet? How about now?”

Kinda shocked, but it worked like a crazy.  He used the potty 4 times (both numbers.)  There was one minor accident (involving the seat of an unfortunate toy car.)  But all in all, a really encouraging start.

Tonight we put the diaper back on before bed.  He is already impatient with the bulky things. By the time we pick up some toddler underwear hopefully he’ll be ready for them.

In the meantime, I just hope he doesn’t become too attached to life in the buck.

-m