When it comes to potty training, there are nearly as many methods as there are kids on which to use them. There’s the One-Day Method, the Child-Led Method, the Potty Planner Method, and the Naked Weekend, just to name a few. All considered to be both standard and effective ways to potty train a child.
Or not.
On my daughter’s first pre-school assessment, under cognitive development skills, her teacher had noted, “Vivian follows two-and-three step directions very well when she wants to.” This did not surprise me. To say that my child is strong-willed would be an understatement.
We first attempted potty training in April 2012 when Vivian, now age three, started showing interest and awareness in the toilet. Which is to say she began barging in on her father and me while we sat on it, peppering us with questions about what we were doing while we were trying to do it.
My husband and I approached potty training with the same lack of protocol with which we’ve handled every parenting challenge flung our way thus far – we winged it. Believing in the child-oriented approach, we essentially let Vivian lead the way, aided (we thought) by pull-ups and the promise of a reward every time she used the potty – a sticker for pee, M&Ms for poop.
Vivian, age 18 months, testing out her brand new potty seat, which she would go on to shun repeatedly.
Initially, Vivian took to this quasi-system like a charm, leaving me under the mistaken impression that potty training had gotten a bad rap. But after about a week, the novelty wore off and she realized that pull-ups are really no different than diapers. And then we experienced the dreaded regression.
This continued throughout the summer, interspersed with periods of potty usage that dashed our hopes but ultimately proved inconsequential. I tried, at times, to shift gears and use the Potty Planner Method, guiding her to the bathroom at intervals like she practices at pre-school. But this approach lay in direct contrast to her powerful sense of autonomy; she was John Locke to my Jack Shepherd, raging, “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do!”
I knew she knew how and when to use the potty, but was nevertheless hesitant to issue the full-court press and simply stick her in underwear. We had tried that once, and the memory of Vivian’s stricken face as she realized too late that she had to go still haunted me. “It’s like Hansel and Gretel if they were potty training,” muttered my husband cleaning up the trail of pee left in her wake as she vainly hightailed it to the bathroom.
So, I maintained the status quo. But I was growing exasperated. And so one Sunday evening in late September, when I found myself changing yet another pair of wet pull-ups, I asked Vivian the one question that had been occupying my thoughts for months.
“Sweetie, if you know how to go pee-pee in the potty, then why do you keep using your pull-ups?”
She in turn fixed me with an unflappable gaze and replied, “Because I can.”
Oh, no she di-ent!
Who do you think you are? I wanted to say. And from whom, exactly, do you think you inherited this pigheadedness? You can’t throw down a challenge like that and expect it to go unanswered. Oh, no. I will see your apathy and your stubbornness and raise you one pair of non-absorbent underwear!
Instead, I simply looked at my husband and said, “Okay, then. This ends now.” And proceeded to pluck a pair of undies from her chest of drawers.
“Panties!” cried Vivian, delighted.
“Yes, and if you go pee-pee in them, they will be very wet and uncomfortable and you will not be a happy little girl,” I replied. “Do you understand?”
She nodded solemnly. And would you like to know what happened next?
The child went on to pee in the potty five times before bedtime. Five times in a three-hour period.
Two weeks – and, surprisingly, only a handful of accidents later – she was fully potty trained. And true to her decisive disposition, she has never looked back.
And so that is how we potty-trained our strong-willed child…
Call it the Battle of Wits Method.
Which potty training method(s) worked best for you, or which one(s) do you plan to use when the time comes?
