Thursday, April 3, 2014

Potty Time

I had completely forgotten how terrible potty training is.

 

You guys.  It sucks.

 

Instead of changing diapers – those easy, mess-containment systems that seem so horrendous for the first baby and then become so darn routine – I am changing pants.  And tiny underwear.  And washing the floors.  And butts.  And legs.  And my hands, again and again.

 

It’s early days yet, and I’m just not willing to commit myself 100% to potty training.  I had said that I wanted to wait until tax season is over so that I can trade off cleaning duties with Tony or at least ask him to clean up the grosser messes, but Jamie is ready now.  Sort of.

 

He wants to wear underwear, and he sometimes tells us when he has to go, but he often forgets.  So I end up half-assing things and putting him in diapers a good chunk of the time.

 

He has lots of underwear, but not nearly enough pants if we’re going to do this right. 

 

Do you have any tips or tricks you’d like to share?  I honestly don’t remember much of what I did for Charles, other than buy him a two-wheeled bike and tell him he could have it when he used the potty consistently.  Insofar as bribery as a parenting tactic goes, Charles was much easier to manage than Jamie.

2 comments:

Julia said...

We half assed Ellie's potty training for like 9 months until I'd had enough. She's now in underwear during the day, except for pooping which must still be done in a diaper. I cannot, for the life of me, get her to go in the toilet. Sigh. I'd just say to wait til he's ready & wants it, and then brace yourself & invest in good hand lotion to offset all the hand washing! :)

Jennifer L. said...

I spent about a year potty training my oldest, about six months with the middle one, and a few weeks at the most with the last. The secret: WAITING! All three of mine were fully potty trained right at age three, the only difference was my starting time. My youngest showed some signs of being ready much earlier, but I wasn't going to deal with messes for a long period of time so we let him go on the potty when he wanted to but didn't push it at all and kept him in diapers until our magic age was close at hand. Potty training really does suck and diapers are so much easier. Good luck!