Oh god. It’s that time. It’s probably been that time for a while but I have been totally avoiding it. Yes sir, it’s time to start Toilet Training.
Bloody Hell, give me strength.
I don’t even know where to begin…Where…Where to start…?? *shrugs shoulders*
Gaaaaah, toilet training. What a jerk of a thing to have to do!
Why kids don’t come out of our bodies peeing and pooping like adults is beyond me.
My mother in law toilet trained my husband and my husband’s brother successfully at 18 months, and has been putting our son on the “potty” at her house since that same time. I have been avoiding doing it at my place because I am in all honestly a wee bit scared.
Scared of what? you ask. Buggered if I know. Well, that’s a lie…I am scared of just about everything.
I am scared of the seemingly never-ending commitment. I am scared of the absolute unsureity of how it all works. I am scared of the accidents. I am scared of not having the control. I am scared of not having a schedule. I am scared of it not working. I am scared of not remotely knowing what I am supposed to be doing.
And, I am totally scared of failure. And I don’t like that. Damnit.
Its weird, right??
I mean, at the end of the day, it might mean more consistent work for 2 potentially hellish weeks (or so), but after that – once he “gets it”, it will actually mean LESS work. And less work means a happy and back-to-being-a-super-lazy mummy. So, eye on the prize mummy. Eye on the prize.
So. Where to start? *scratches chin in deep thought*.
What if I write my own schedule? One where I can use an assortment of pretty coloured pens, and I can tick when my little one masters each of his assigned toilet sessions?
That makes it more appealing for me I suppose. And gives me a sense of control.
But I wasn’t even ready for that yet. Will I ever be??
So, the first step that I took in this process was to buy him some undies. Some cute little Bonds undies, just like what his daddy wears. They were gorgeous and teeny tiny.
And I did absolutely nothing with them for ages.
I mean, I washed them and put them in his drawer. However that was about all I did. And every time I opened that same drawer over the course of the next month or two they stared at me accusingly, almost calling out to me in agony asking why I wasn’t using them. Wondering if they would still fit by the time I got around to starting this terrifying toilet training process?
And I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t have bought them if I had realised the intense feeling of guilt that they would have brought me through their lack of use. #ohmygodgirlgrowapair
So I avoided looking at them for about a month and a half until I DID finally grow a pair. One day I woke up and just knew…Today was the day. I was going to get started. Oh help me. And get me those colourful pens to make a chart.
I knew I would start the training after swimming, so the morning kicked off as usual. Except on this particular day he chose to drink half a pools worth of water. Mind you, I didn’t know this until later in the day after the pool water had made its way out of his doodle, and was all over our tiles. Hmmmmmm…
So we drove home from swimming, and I spent the whole drive psyching myself up to get cracking on the job at hand. Which is a terrible joke, because by the time those undies were put on my little mans body they really had gotten a touch small and I could see a bit of plumbers crack showing over the top of a couple of the pairs. Oops.
So. It began. I grabbed out those pens and created an hourly chart that helped give me a sense of timing and control. And something to look at obsessively for the next 3 days.
I then layed out 7 pairs of pants, 7 pairs of undies, and (as I realised I needed to after the first accident) 7 pairs of socks in the loungeroom. I even colour coordinated them because that’s how I roll. #ermagawdineedalife
I aimed to put him on the toilet at least once every hour and watched the clock like the end of the world was coming, to make sure I didn’t miss my timings. He looked so cute with his teeny tiny little nappy free bum, and I stared at him like a creep for the whole day. In fact, I was too scared to look away for a second or even to blink in case I missed any signs that he was about to wee. Like a scrunchy face, or a squat, or…well, anything because I had never noticed any of those signs before.
But blink I did. And wee all over the floor, HE did. Like 3 times. Over the course of the day I spent more time dangling a dripping human in front of me whilst we ran to the toilet, wiping up wee off the lounge room tiles, and sitting on the floor of that toilet trying to prevent someone from leaping off and running through the house mid wee stream than I could have possibly imagined.
But, to be honest it wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be.
When my husband got home, I took the dog for a walk to get some fresh non-wee filled air, and left him in charge of our sons dinner and continuing the toilet training. But I had forgotten one crucial thing. To tell him that he must put our son on the toilet regardless of whether he said that he wanted to go on the toilet or not.
So when I got back home, I arrived to the sight of one happy little boy stuffing his face with food at one end, and joyously weeing all over his high chair from the other. We cleaned him up, tossed him into the bath and into bed, whilst I obsessively thought of all the wine that would be getting up in my face right now if I wasn’t pregnant.
The next day I tried to continue the routine that I had started the day before and at the very sight of the bathroom, the little man started crying and screeching “No Toilet! No Toilet! No Toilet! No Tooooooiileeeeeeeeeet!”and refused to go.
So, I gave up.
I figure that maybe its just not the time for him.
A friend has sent me a book that I am going to read called “Oh Crap” which apparently helps you get this shit done in a matter of days, so now I am psyching myself up to read that and start again.
But I figure that its more important to wait and try again when HE is a little more ready and wont scream no, no, no hysterically at me. You know, when I am also less likely to traumatise myself. I mean, him.
And in the back of my mind, floating around is the hope that if I wait long enough then he might toilet train himself.
Please little man. You can do that for your mumma right?? Maybe. Oh gawd.
When did you toilet train your child/children? Do you have any tips on how to do it? What worked for you? And at what age were you successful? Leave me a comment below as I would love to hear all about it!! xxxx
