The Potty Training Diaries

We’ve been talking about potty training our youngest for a while. He’s 2.5 and to all intents and purposes seems ready. The delay was partly down to the fact that we couldn’t be arsed, obviously there are advantages to ditching the nappies but there are also weeks of dragging around a potty and 5 pairs of trousers which make it slightly less appealing.

However the excuses were running thin on the ground and it was time to man up – we’d read Pirate Pete’s Potty a hundred times and I’d bought stashes of Minion pants (his favourite) from Primark. There was nothing left to do but get on with it…

Day 1.

After taking off his morning nappy I show him his very exciting new pants. However instead of making him happy they just make him VERY angry.minionHe right out refuses to put them on! I manage to negotiate with him and in the end he agrees to put on a pair of his brothers’s old pants with footballs on them. Kids are weird.

The morning goes well with no accidents, he wees on the potty once at home and comes back from a trip to the park, dry. I start feeling a bit smug.

My sister and her girlfriend come down to visit us in the afternoon and J makes a lovely lasagne for us all to enjoy.

And then the boy does a massive wee all over his chair and the floor.

chair

‘Sorry about the wee I hope it doesn’t put you off your lunch!’

It all goes steadily downhill from there.

Next he runs into the garden and pisses all over the decking before proceeding to jump up and down it it with a ludicrous grin on his face, a bit like Peppa Pig on acid.

wee puddles

The afternoon comprises of many more accidents of the no. 1 and 2 variety. #FML

Later on me and the girls go to the pub to catch up, leaving  J looking after the kids. It was just for a quick drink, but I don’t get out much and one drink quickly turns into another…  you know how it is.

A couple with a dog were sat next to us and we started chatting to them about how lovely their dog was and other stuff that I don’t particularly recall. I’m not quite sure how it all culminated but at some point us and the dog people thought it was a good idea to order Jagerbombs?!

Jagerbombs can be a good idea if you are out dancing. They are not a good idea to have in the pub at 9pm as a nightcap. On a Sunday!

down it

This was one of the craziest nights out I’ve had for a while despite the fact I was in bed by 10.30pm.

I blame the dog.

If you are wondering how all of this is relevant to potty training, see day 2.

Day 2.

I wake up at 4am feeling horrendous. I cannot get back to sleep due to my headache. This is what being old does to you.

What sort of idiots think doing Jagerbombs on a Sunday evening is a good idea?

The boy is still angry about the Minion pants (despite loving Minions) and this coupled with the fact that I cannot face a day of mopping up wee and scraping poo out of pants whilst hungover, means potty training is OVER.

Toddler group is also not happening because blurgh. Instead we sit in the kitchen eating Pickled Onion Monster Munch and putting the world to rights.

monster

Then we watch a Peppa Pig DVD on the sofa, I’ll admit she has her uses god bless her.

Day 3.

It’s a nursery day. I am very tempted to send him in with multiple changes of clothes to see how he gets on – especially as nursery seems to be more effective at parenting him than me. But my heart says he’s not quite ready.

And whilst I’d like to thank one particular lady for her helpful comment that ‘he looks about a year too late to be potty training’ I’d also like to let her know that, that would have made him 18 months old?! And also… MIND YOUR OWN GOD DAMN BUSINESS!

We’ll start again soon, maybe in a couple of months when (hopefully) prancing about in his own urine seems slightly less appealing. Fingers crossed!

wee puddles2

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26 thoughts on “The Potty Training Diaries

  1. Michelle

    Potty training sucks. I gave up numerous times & our daughter has only just figured it out at 3yrs 4months. I was getting very conscious of her advancing age. They hold all the cards though don’t they?! We’ve got No1’s sussed now, but No2’s still aren’t going where they should.

    Reply
    1. Gail

      I hope you don’t mind me commenting but I just wanting to say – he wont poo his pants forever! My son was also 3 when he toilet trained and it went very well – basically did it himself and only couple accidents…..but…couple months later he kept pooing his pants. ..at this point only few weeks off starting pre school. But anyhow it just suddenly stopped and that was that. We tried being patient/annoyed/rewards etc and nothing worked so we ‘ignored’ it (obviously cleaned and changed him!) & it just stopped.it lasted about 4/5 weeks.
      Good luck!!

      Reply
    2. Michelle @ life writes the story

      Apparantly, according to my mum (it must be true) they ‘get’ the weeing part before the pooing part. That’s what I’ve been telling myself anyway, for the last two weeks my daughter (who was 3 in May) is weeing in the toilet (great!), but still stubbornly refuses to poo anywhere other than her knickers, (nice!)

      Reply
  2. Outnumbered mum

    This is all a bit too familiar! We have been attempted to potty train our now 3 year old boys for approximately 6 months…… First instalment can be found here: http://wp.me/p5OZJy-5m
    There is absolutely NOTHING fun about potty training. We are now on attempt number 3 having decided that we have given up enough and this time we MUST succeed.
    Spent this evening scraping poo off pants.

    Reply
  3. Carie

    Aww bless him – I’m trying to think if I can come up with a worse combination than seriously hungover and trying to potty train and I’m stumped. Good luck for next time :)

    Reply
  4. Joj

    We had similar issues with our 3yr old. We resorted to out and out bribery!
    And what did people do for hangovers before pickled onion monster munches……?!
    Good luck next time!

    Reply
  5. Rachel Picken

    Ok… I’ve been trying to potty train our almost 3 yo daughter for about 6 months, she’s good on wees but never on poos. So every day there is a major code brown. Possibly TMI but today they sent her stuff home from nursery with an ACTUAL TURD in her pants and leggings, bagged up in a nappy bag, in her changing bag. Why didn’t they at least try and flush it down the loo? The shock when I was loading stuff into the washing machine. Arrrrrrgh! It was never this bad with daughter 1.

    Reply
  6. maddie

    Potty training sucks! I didn’t start my twins until they we’re three. A lot of accidents, having to bring them in the bathroom every twenty minutes. I have boy/girl twins and it took my son forever to learn the poop part. I was totally that person that bought a bunch of small snacks and toys and gave it to them when they did good. My youngest on the other hand just turned three and has been potty trained for a year and a half. Literally taught herself because I didn’t want to yet. Good luck, I feel your pain!

    Reply
  7. Scruffy Dad

    Despite the warning, I was hoping there might be a tip or two.

    Instead, I got a famliar feeling spread through me like a wet patch on a treasured piece of furniture. Thanks. I’ve been avoiding reading posts about kids and toilets in case I feel like even more of a putz than usual, but now I feel OK.

    Win/win situation for me.

    Reply
  8. Kiran

    At some point we might have to start trying this with Jasmin. BUT I DON’T WANT TO. Jagerbombs sound like a perfectly reasonable way to handle this situation to me. Especially on a Sunday. Love you x

    Reply
  9. Laura

    I didn’t potty train my son until he was three and I genuinely couldn’t care less what other people thought. Compared to the other kids at pre-school he was a little late but I’ve never really been one for the parenting olympics so I waited until HE was ready and guess what, we cracked it in under a week! I did have one earlier attempt which sounds very similar to yours – a deceptively good start followed by anger, confusion, tears (that was just me) and LOTS OF POO. He’ll get there in his own time :) xx

    Reply
  10. Leila

    These things go in cycles. My son’s 33 now and I started potty-training him at 12m, as was the fashion at the time. We took his bottom clothes off in the house, and he second he started to wee or poo, we whipped out the potty, caught what was left in it and gave him a round of applause. He used the potty variously as a seat and a hat but eventually made the connection. By the time he was 16m, he could say recognisable words for when he felt it approaching. He wasn’t reliably accident-free until he was about 2, so maybe leaving it till he was 2 would have got exactly the same result :)

    Reply
  11. Lauren | Belle du Brighton

    Urgh the whole idea makes me shudder. Athena came home from nursery this week with a star on her sheet thing because she did a piddle on the potty but apparently only wanted to sit on it so she could get a sticker like the other kids. I asked her when we got home if she wanted to sit on the potty and practically screamed no at me. I guess she knew I didn’t have stickers

    Reply
  12. Carry On Katy

    My boy is a whole year older than yours and he has been potty training for 2 months. The other day he pulled a shit out of his ass and threw it at my mum…In soft play. I wasn’t there as I was necking pints of Magners on a balcony with my husband. I did feel bad about it…especially as I had loaded him with lactulose before I went out.
    I may stick the pampers back on him and call it a day!
    And all hail the jagerbomb! Genius x

    Reply
  13. Matt

    This potty training worked for my son! I Wasted money so many times, but It worked for us! My little one just turned 19 months. He def goes poop on the potty EVERY TIME and tells us. He is too little yet to “know” when he has to pee (that’s what our pedi said at his 18 month check up). We use cloth diapers and hes just getting to the point where he knows when hes wet and does not like it. I think by the end of the month he will get the hang of peeing. Today we made it out of the house for 2 hours with out a pee accident. GOOD LUCK!

    Reply
  14. Suzanne3childrenandit

    Hilarious my friend – I LOVE the jumping in wee wee puddles on the decking….and of course the jager bombs on a Sunday night. Ouchie! And as a mother, you have every right to decide that a hangover = no potty training. They all get there in the end, right? Well you don’t see many adults sitting on a potty…;) x

    Reply
  15. Zoe

    Hilarious. Just in the process of potty training our little girl. We seem to have cracked it in the day time but haven’t been brave enough to try her through the night yet. Also, I bought her Peppa Pig knickers, like you with the minion pants, thinking she’d adore them and she hated them! What’s all that about?

    Reply
  16. Della

    Brilliant! Sorry it didn’t go so well, but that was a very funny read! My youngest is also 2 1/2 but I haven’t even attempted to potty train him yet, so kudos to you for even trying! There will always be some terribly annoying person who will tell you their kid was fully dry by 18 months, just ignore these people! Trained my older son when he was three and he got it in 2 days. Longer you leave it, the easier it is. Lazy parenting win!

    Reply
  17. Helen Wood

    Loved this post! We’re in week 3 of our second attempt at potty training our now 2y 11m son. He “gets” it but finds it really stressful and dances round doing a weird sort of Birdie Song dance while proclaiming he definitely doesn’t need a poo.

    Sunday was a low point – double carpet turds. Comedy is the only way to survive. I nearly went into premature labour laughing when my OH proclaimed our son had (of the first floor turd) “laid it like a surprise egg”.

    Reply
  18. Alison White

    The daily poo in the pants went on for months here. By the end, I was so fed up with scraping poo off the pants and shoving the soiled remains in the washing machine (I started feeling sorry for the machine), I resorted to putting them in a nappy sac in the bin and buying more

    Reply
  19. Iain

    I thought potty training was fun, because my daughter used to wee randomly in public, and I’d like to be able to wee randomly in public without the police getting involved.

    We once got thrown out of Tescos because she demonstrated her opinion of the checkout queue by making a big puddle. I was so proud. Rock ‘n’ roll.

    Reply
  20. elgouldio

    At least he is weeing and pooing. My son declines to do either. And now won’t even poo in a nappy. I’m a slave to his bowels. I’d sell my soul for a potty training service you could send them to for a few weeks, returning dry and happy.

    Reply
  21. Claire

    I hate the judgemental arsehole parents who, just because their kids were “fully trained in a day”, sneer down at you that you MUST be doing something wrong as a parent because your kid just doesn’t get it. RAGE.

    Reply

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