Too Big for Diapers

Last week was HUGE for my son. We started real potty training!

Admittedly, we've been a little late with this. We've been doing half-hearted potty training for the past 4 months or so - we'll ask if he'll like to go to the potty and if he says no, we'll leave it at that. We've not had him not wear his diapers - which really is step one of potty training, so your child knows what it feels like to be wet and uncomfortable - so I'll say we've not pulled out all stops yet. Until now.

The reason I've not been dead serious about potty training so far is because...well, it just seems too much of a hassle. I'll rather change his diapers than have to constantly deal with taking him to the bathroom. I'm not a fan at all of public restrooms and the thought of having to get him to go to one of those without him touching any of the surfaces, coupled with trying to keep his pants from falling over, just seems waaay too much work. We also had a few overseas trips lined up, so to wrestle with public bathrooms in another country, whilst having a non-schedule since we'll be on vacation, just didn't seem to be a good recipe for serious potty training.

But now that he'll be hitting 3 in a few months (where did all the time go?!), it's now or never. I bought an excessive amount of underwear, in all kinds of fun characters that my son loves (Cars, Bob the Builder, Spider-Man - you name it, we've got it), and starting Monday last week, he went without his diapers.

He goes to nursery in the day and his teachers have been really supportive - they have no problems with helping him change if he gets wet, and they said they'll do it as many times as needed. 

As testament to my son's resilience, on Day 1, he did not pee at all for 8 hours! The nursery has scheduled bathroom breaks during the day - around every 1.5 hours, they'll bring the kids to the bathroom. Joshua went every time and stood there but held it in - for 8 whole hours! He finally inadvertently got wet, and cried and we went home on Day 1 feeling frazzled and a little discouraged. At home, he kept up not wanting to go to the bathroom and we spent all night cleaning up.

On Day 2, he refused to go to the bathroom and started having a MAJOR fit, he screamed and yelled, turned red in the face and his whole head was soaked in sweat because he was so worked up. I was genuinely stressed out about this - is this normal in potty training? Are kids supposed to have such an adverse reaction? I didn't want him to have a negative association with going to the potty. Of course it didn't help that one of my friends said that a friend of hers (six degrees of separation!) who inadvertently went overboard on the potty training with her child ended up with her child still being in diapers at age 4!

After much cajoling, he finally agreed to go without his diapers and off to nursery we went. Miraculously, on Day 2 at nursery, he improved by leaps and bounds - he did well at the scheduled bathroom breaks. Day 2 at home was also good - we didn't need to bring him to the bathroom every hour or so, he would let us know when he needed to go.

By Day 3, he'd pretty much got it down pat. By Day 4, we went without diapers even for bedtime (he now wakes once in the night to go to the bathroom). Apart from Day 1, he's stayed dry and has had no accidents. His performance in the past week has way exceeded what I was hoping for in Week 1 of potty training. 

This has been a miracle, and a huge relief.  I thought I would be lucky if he could get this in a month, or two weeks, but he seemed to have gotten it in 3 days. I was really concerned about potty training because my son just didn't want to do it and wrestling with him is frustrating, not to mention not knowing how much is too much - when do you keep persisting and not cave, and when are you pushing your child too much such that it becomes a negative experience?

I don't know if I'll ever quite get the hang of parenting.