Potty Training

Confession: Monkey is 2 years and 9 months old. And she’s not potty trained yet.

Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one of my mom friends whose kid isn’t potty trained yet. If I actually stop and think about all of my friends, I can find a few exceptions. But it feels like I’m behind.

I wanted to potty train her around her 2nd birthday. But I have been able to come up with excuse after excuse for why we haven’t done it yet. First, I wanted to wait until after her brother was born. I had heard from many people that, “oh, I had Baby 1 potty trained, and then Baby 2 came along and my first one regressed.” Or, I heard, “it is so hard to deal with taking the older sibling to the potty when we’re out in public when we have the baby with us. You know how dirty public restrooms are – do you really want to take a newborn in there?” No. No, I didn’t.

Then, after the Bear was born, I put it off. Monkey was only 2 years and 2 months – we had plenty of time to do it. Bear was born in September and I took of two months for maternity leave. I figured I’d wait until towards the end, so it wouldn’t be so tricky to deal with the needs of a newborn and a potty training toddler. But that idea was a dud too.

I told my husband that I should wait until I’m on break. He told me he didn’t think that was necessary. So we tried and made some progress for a few days. But we try to keep busy (read: my depression is much more severe when I stay at home, so we rarely stay home all day). So, we would go pantsless for an hour or so in the morning, then put a diaper on to go in the car to the grandparents’ house, then diaper off, then another diaper on when grandpa takes her to the library, then diaperless at the house, then diaper to go to the park…

I think you get the point. It was logistically challenging. So after a few days of that hot mess, we gave up and waited until I had time off work.

The nice thing about being a teacher is having lots of breaks and long weekends. I mean we work a lot to make up for it, but in this case, it was so easy to say “You know what, I have a week off at Thanksgiving. I’ll potty train her then.” “Christmas break is coming soon.” “MLK day, for sure.” “… How about spring break?”

So here I am, on spring break, trying for the 4th or 5th time to potty train my toddler. And now I’m done with the excuses. I know the real reason why we haven’t potty trained yet.

It’s hard.

Some of my friends make it sound so easy. “We just kept the pants off all day for two days and she was set!” “She actually told *me* that she didn’t want to wear diapers anymore. I guess she was just ready!” And maybe for some of them it really was easy. But the more I’ve pressed, the more I’ve learned that it really is hard for them too. One friend’s son was perfectly potty trained… while at home. They always put a pull up on him when he was out and about. Or, they always have an accident in the car. Go figure. The hidden secret was that it is actually a lot harder than it seems.

Right now, Monkey can consistently use the potty, even without being told to, if she is running around the house pantsless and diaperless. if we put pants on her, it’s a gamble. And wearing big girl underwear is a recipe for an accident.

But anyway, here we are. I’m trying very hard to maintain my sanity while potty training a strong-willed toddler, caring for a new crawler, leave the house a moderate amount, and do it all before I go back to work in 6 days.

Wish me luck.