Potty Training 101

Potty training is every parents most daunting task! But here are some potty training 101 tips and products!

You might be prolonging it as long as possible and let me tell you, I was okay with the diapers. Sure it was expensive buying diapers every month, but I also loved the freedom of the diaper. But we all sometimes need some potty training 101.

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We didn’t have to stop in the middle of a task or errand for a potty break. There was no “drop everything and run to the bathroom” episodes.

We were able to go about our day without potty problems. Long car rides were a breeze and it was just all around smoother.

She didn’t care that she was still wearing a diaper and neither did I.

I would get asked all the time when I was going to potty train her. People would tell my daughter “aren’t you too old for a diaper” as a not-so-subtle jab at my parenting choice (or more so fear).

Now I will say, when my daughter was around 18 months old we had bought one of these mini princess potty’s. She would sit on it while I would go to the bathroom, but it was more of a copying process than a true understanding.

She did manage to go potty in there a few times (I think by accident) but we cheered and applauded her.

In hindsight, we should’ve started the full blown potty training 101 at that moment but we didn’t. Or we should have gotten a potty training book like this one to get more tips and tricks before we started.

My daughter showed no interest in the potty. Now all the “experts” say to start when your child shows an interest in the toilet and such, but she never did.

She could care less, wouldn’t tell us when she peed or even pooped in her diaper. She just didn’t care that she was “dirty”.

So I suppose, I took her lead and just didn’t care if I taught her how to use the toilet either.

Now fast forward to the week of her 3rd birthday. My mom was in town and we had been talking about potty training for awhile.

I had talked with friends about how to start. I was recommended books, remedies, etc but I just didn’t feel the need or want to spend money on a book to tell me how to tell my kid to use the toilet.

Just didn’t seem to make sense.

So I took their advice on some tricks but the whole “let her be naked” thing totally backfired.

She sat naked on the floor playing and would just pee. No warning, no “potty dance”, nothing.

So that idea went out the door.

It wasn’t until my mom I guess got sick of the fact that she was in diapers. She knew I was too hesitant to initiate it myself because I knew we basically had to stay home, indoors, near a toilet for a couple days.

I didn’t want to waste the time we had with my mom stuck potty training. But she didn’t mind. So we started.

We went to target and bought training underwear. They are these thicker lined underwear so if they do pee in them they will absorb some of the liquid but still allow the kid to feel wet so they know its there and its uncomfortable.

So we bought the training underwear, washed them, and had her wear them.

We explained to her about using the potty when she had the “feeling” to go. But let me tell you, have you ever tried to explain the “feeling” of having to go to a toddler, or anyone for that matter.

It’s hard and there are no accurate words to describe it. That is one of those things in life that they will just have to figure out on their own that you cant teach what a “feeling” feels like.

You can describe a feeling or anger or sadness when they are in the midst of it and going through it but how to do you explain a potty feeling? We had no clue.

Anyways, she peed through the training underwear probably for about 3 days. It was awful.

I was constantly washing underwear and whatever else she was sitting on during the accident. We tried bribing her with m&ms and whatever else she was into at the moment.

Didn’t work. She is the most stubborn child I will say.

Now the training little potty we had, used to make a pretty ringing sound like a princess when it sensed water, that FREAKED her out.

The first time she heard it she asked what it was and she didn’t seem to mind it, but then again that was when she was younger.

Now that she was well aware what my mom and I were trying to get her to do, she heard the noise and flipped out and refused to sit on it.

So we resorted to bribing. “If you just sit on it you can have an M&M”, “Just sit down on it!”

Didn’t work. She refused still or she would sit on it with the lid down and her pants still on. She was so hard headed when it came to this and its because she was in control.

She knew this was the one thing she could control and by George she controlled it. She knew we couldn’t “make her” go potty. It was all on her.

I’m not going to lie and say it was the easiest thing because it wasn’t. There was yelling & crying involved, mostly by me. But we were determined.

So we brought the potty into the living room and left it there and once she finally slowly but surly got okay to just sit on the potty we would let her have her snacks and watch a show but she HAD to sit on the potty and do it.

So that’s how we got her over her sitting on the potty fear. Now for the tricky part of having her actually use it.

We decided since the being naked thing didn’t work and she had no full understanding of the feeling of having to pee.

We decided timing would be our new friend.

My mom and I set alarms for every 10 minutes and would have her just sit on the potty for about 1-2 minutes. I set alarms on my phone and let her pick her “potty ring” so she felt involved in the process.

Then every 10 minutes she would sit and go. We would have her drink tons of water and then we pushed it to 15 minutes because even us adults don’t or cant go every 10 minutes.

So we waiting to 15 minutes and every 15 minutes like clock work, her potty ring would go off and she got to the point she would hear it and know it was time to sit and try.

So she would sit and try and when she did pee in the potty we made a HUGE deal about it.

Kids love praise and happiness surrounding them and so when she did pee in the potty, even just a tiny bit, you’d think the parade had come to town the way we cheered and applauded.

Now it came time for her birthday dinner, we went out in public for the first time in only 3 days and she was no where near ready, but I decided I wasn’t putting our life on hold for this child to pee.

We we put on the training underwear and we went to dinner. I brought plenty extra underwear because I knew she would pee through them.

And she did. But you know what, and this may sound mean and harsh to some and I will probably get criticized for this, but I let her sit in it.

I didn’t change her until after dinner when we got to the car. I let her stand (because she wouldn’t sit because she knew it was uncomfortable) in the wetness so she understood that its not okay to pee in her pants anymore.

That seemed to work. Within a few days of the every 15 minutes she started going regularly in about a weeks time.

She was going good, she would tell us she had to go pee and it was amazing!

She definitely still had her accidents and there were times I wanted to give up and say “screw it” but I pushed through.

The only time she got a diaper was at nighttime she’d wear a pull-up. What finally got her to pee consistently was Minnie Mouse underwear.

I kid you not.

She saw the real Minnie Mouse underwear at Target and wanted them so badly. But I explained to her if she got the real underwear she could not pee in them.

That Minnie Mouse did not like to be peed on. It took her only have 2 accidents and me making a big deal about “poor Minnie Mouse” to have her get it down fully.

I would say it took about 2 weeks for her to be fully pee trained. Now going poop on the other hand was a whole other battle in itself.

We had the same issues of her not wanting to poop in the potty because “its yucky” and I couldn’t argue with her there. Especially since I was the one who had to clean out that training potty when she would go poop.

So ya girl, I felt the “its yucky” thing.

I will say explaining the poop feeling was easier to understand for her but she was terrified to poop in the little potty because it the potty wasn’t deep enough so she still felt it even after she went and it grossed her out.

But she refused to use the big toilet so alas we were stuck again in this battle. She would hold her poop in for days at a time.

To the point where she would sit lay around on the couch because she was so backed up.

So I bought these constipation ease drops to help her loosen the bowels so it would be easier to push out.

She managed to still hold it in! I got to the point of telling her to just poop in her underwear.

I didn’t care at that point, I just wanted her to go! It was 5 days of her holding in her poop.

I told her if she didn’t just go we would have to go to the doctors.

She finally went. Day 6 she finally went poop.

Granted it was in her underwear but like I said, I didn’t care at that point.

She knew she wasn’t supposed to go in her underwear so she would be ashamed and thought I would yell at her but I didn’t.

I kept my calm and just cleaned up her mess and nicely explained to her that she had to go in the potty.

I used the same “poor Minnie Mouse” explanation as before when she would poop in them and I would throw them away as a more dramatic approach.

Then she saw Paw Patrol underwear one day at Target and since Skye was her absolute favorite, she begged for the Paw Patrol Skye underwear. So we went through the same process.

I told her that she could earn a Paw Patrol underwear every time she pooped in the potty.

It WORKED!

Every time she pooped in the toilet, she earned a Paw Patrol underwear and she was so excited. Then once those ran out, she found Trolls underwear at Target and it just continued.

It took 2 packs of new underwear that she had to earn for her to be fully poop trained! We now have so many underwear’s I don’t have to do underwear laundry all month!

But it was worth it! She is now (and has been for awhile) fully potty trained with no accidents. We only started this process October of 2018 and it is now September of 2019.

So its been almost one year since we started the potty training journey. Now I will say, she has been fully potty trained for about 8 months now.

The battle months only lasted 3 months total.

Some will say that’s too long, some will say that’s so short but honestly it depends on you child. It depends how old they are when you start as well.

My daughter was almost 3 and knew what was happening and was very stubborn about the whole process because she knew she was in control.

In hindsight if we would have started back at 18 months of even 2 years old, it may have been a smoother process, maybe not. We’ll never know.

But this is my take away advice for anyone out there potty training or thinking about potty training. The hard times wont last forever.

You child won’t be in 8th grade still in a diaper. It just wont happen.

So even if you have a stubborn hard-headed toddler like mine, I am proof that you can get it done and eventually you will win.

Here is the complete list of items I used during potty training:

• Princess Training Potty
• Training underwear
• Character underwear
• Flushable wipes
• Timer on my phone
• Constipation ease drops
• Pull-ups for nighttime
• Treats for bribing

I hope this story and some of the potty training 101 items I mention help you during your potty training journey.

Plus now, I throw the training potty in the back of the car for long trips or if I know we are going to a park or someplace without a bathroom.

So the $20 potty has definitely been worth it! Now we still have to tackle nighttime potty training.

My daughter still uses a pull-up at night because she is such a hard sleeper that she wont wake up to pee.

If you have any night time training tips for me, leave them in the comments! I’d love to hear about how you tackled that!

There is also this Potty Training book you could follow for more tips and ideas on how to tackle potty training! And for other mom hacks and tips check out this page.