Peer Pressure Parenting

Today was the first day of serious potty training. Malia started showing readiness earlier this year, but I was so mired in daily migraines that I just couldn't give potty training the time I knew it would take. So now that the headaches on definitely improving and preschool starts in two months, today was the day to get serious.

I'm not a huge fan of potty training. I'm not sure that anyone is, but having a couple of kids who were enormously tough to train has really made it unpleasant for me. Which means I've been pretty stressed about the whole thing. I don't want any repeat performances of the power struggles and drama that accompanied the training of some of my boys. I've had tons of other moms tell me that the "naked weekend" approach is super and works like a charm. All the mommy bloggers I've come across rave about it and go on and on about how pull-ups are the epitome of evil. So I figured I'd give it a try.

This morning we got Malia all dressed and into her brand new big girl panties. She is seriously excited about the panties (Anna, Elsa, princesses, and even Olaf!) so this was a big deal. We set a timer and headed to the bathroom about half a dozen times with no results. So we sat her down, fed her breakfast (lots of juice included) and I figured we were on our way. I was prepared for lots of accidents so the first one was no surprise to me. But Malia was a bit upset and once we cleaned everything up, she asked to have plastic pants on top of her panties. That should have been my first hint that things were not going to go well...

We reset the timer, but Malia did not even make it ten minutes before she was wet again. And she continued to wet herself every 5-10 minutes.I know that she can stay dry longer than that, so I was a bit concerned about how things were progressing. One hour and six pairs of panties later, she asked for a pull-up and I was happy to oblige. My normally happy and chatty 2 year old was totally stressed out and anxious. When I get totally stressed out and anxious, one of the results is that I have to pee every five minutes. And I suspected that I was seeing the same thing in Malia.

Once she was in the pull-up, we reset the timer and 15 minutes later Malia was back in the bathroom, still dry, and peed in the potty. Forty-five minutes later, we had a repeat performance. And Malia was smiling and laughing again.

After we switched tactics, Malia did better. She was dry more often and her mood was greatly improved. We have a long way to go seeing as this was only the first day, but she’ll get there when she gets there. And hopefully that will be in time for preschool.

I'm sure that potty boot camp works for some kids and moms, but that is clearly not going to work for us. Sometimes slow and steady really does win the prize. It may take us a little longer to say Malia is actually trained, but I have no problem with that as long as my child is happy and her bladder is not doing a splendid imitation of a nervous chihuahua.