Adventures in Potty Training

Not so recently I began the great potty training adventure and I must say that it started out as a very very rocky road but after a ton of hard work and determination (mostly a little luck) success occurred.



Everyone kept telling me how their friends friends child was fully potty trained by the age of 1 and that I really needed to get on the ball and get serious about this. I kept telling them that I would do it when he was ready and at that time I just didn't feel that he was ready to set out on the potty train. After a ton of mommy peer pressure I decided to give it a shot despite my better judgment and what happened next was by far the worst few months of my life.

Daylan responded horribly to this forced potty training refusing to go to the bathroom at all even when he had his diaper on. I spent most of the month in the emergency room and at the doctors office because he was becoming more and more backed up and it was making him sick. To my surprise this was not an unusual occurrence. The doctor told me that this is something they see all the time when parents start trying to potty train their children. The doctor reassured me that everything would be alright and that I should abandon potty training for a little while longer.

So as the time went by I just worked to get Daylan familiar with the potty process by employing the help of books and movies. I found that he responded very well to two products in particular the first a book called The Potty Train by David Hochman and the second a movie called Elmo's Potty Time. These two things helped me so much in my quest to conquer the potty training dilemma.

I allowed a few more months to go by and when Daylan seemed to be back to normal I attempted again with a new approach. When ever we would get back home I would take off his pants and diaper and let him run around free. He hates making messes so I knew that even if he peed on the floor just once it would be so horrible that he wouldn't do it again and I was right. After I removed all the barriers he went to the potty like it was second nature. He told me one day " Mommy see I am on the potty train". I was so proud of him and he has been doing good ever since. We continued with the no diaper or pants thing for about a week even at bed time and then we went shopping for big boy underwear which was a challenge in itself.

After all of that we are now in underwear full time and I am happy to report that Daylan has about one accident every few days but only at school (mostly doing outdoors time) and none when he is at home.

So if any of you are feeling pressure to potty train your kids listen to yourself and your child because all children are different and what to get aboard the potty train at all different ages.