Potty Training Archives - Deep In Diapers

I thought potty training would be easy. I saw all the books and training videos claiming potty training could be accomplished on a weekend. Maybe the people who write those books have a superstar toddler, but for me, potty training that fast didn’t play out.

The main reason potty training didn’t happen over a weekend is that I work from home. Every minute of my day is accounted for and scheduled so that my toddler is busy when I need to work. The idea that I had to somehow carve out two uninterrupted days to plan for potty training was impossible. So with that in mind, I ended up taking a much more relaxed approach to potty training. Here are a few things I learned about potty training along the way.

Potty Training Isn’t Easy

I don’t know why I thought it would be easy. I figured my kid probably didn’t like sitting in a dirty diaper so I thought they would be as excited as I was for them to potty train…WRONG. Come to find out my toddler could have cared less about potty training. Dirty pants don’t care was his motto! Potty training was a lot harder than I thought.

I Needed Lots of Extra Clothes.

I didn’t adhere to the idea of letting my kid be naked during the potty training time. First of all my toddler hates being naked and cold. Secondly, it just seems weird to me to let my kid play all day naked and let him pee on himself.

So I opted for doing lots and lots and lots of laundry during the many accidents that equaled potty training. I needed extra sheets, mattress pads, socks, underwear you name it. The extras helped on those days we’d go through 4-5 outfits. Ugh!

Potty Training Requires Patience

It’s so hard to be patient when teaching a toddler a skill that is easy for us. It’s hard to remember that we too once had to learn to go potty. I remember one time after losing my patience with my toddler for what felt like the 85th accident that day I asked him do you know why we’re learning to go potty in the toilet?

It makes mommy sad when I go potty in my pants – Three-year-old

He said because it makes mommy sad when I go potty in my pants. I realized my toddler didn’t really understand why I wanted him to potty train so badly. At that moment, I realized I had to be patient and not lose my cool while I was letting him learn.

Don’t Get Discouraged – They will get it.

When you’re potty training it feels like your child will never get it. It seemed all my friends and family that had kids the same age we already potty trained. My son wasn’t. So I felt bad that it was taking what felt like 90 years longer than everyone else I knew. I was certain I would be sending my child to kindergarten in diapers.

We as moms often compare our kids and their development with others. We see the kid that potty trained at 12 months and feel like a failure because our three-year-old is still wearing diapers. This is easy to do but never healthy. Instead of getting frustrated and comparing the achievements of other kids, we should take comfort in the fact that our child will get it.

If you’re deep in diapers, accidents, laundry and just the crazy that makes up mom life, take heart. Your toddler will learn to go potty. Your toddler will stop messing his pants 19 times a day. You don’t need to bribe him, yell at him or use any other crazy techniques to get them trained. Just stay patient, positive, and focused and after a couple of months, he will get it.

A few months after I started my toddler very seldom has an accident. He goes in the potty without me checking on him or bothering him about it. Hang in there, Mom. You will make it through and you too won’t have to send your child to school in diapers!

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