He pooped in the potty all day yesterday!
This is a huge achievement in our household and I needed to continue celebrating outside of just family. My son turned 3 just shy of a month ago and a full day of only potty has eluded us. It's my fault though. I pushed potty training too early and he ended up having meltdowns when we even entered a bathroom. Apparently, 18 months was a too ambitious of a start time. Any case, we're expecting our second later this year, so drastic measures were needed at the 2.5 yr mark. For months, on weekends and weeknights he was stripped from the waist down. After many carpet accidents and carpet cleanings, he enjoyed being clean more than he feared a potty. I fully admit every pee was rewarded with plan M&Ms, which I got flak on because we don't reward adults for pottying. Still he would hold his poops until off the toilet. Eventually, he accidentally pooped on the toilet and his life didn't end. Little by little and extremely slowly, he became okay pooping on the toilet. We weaned off bribing pees and started bribing poops. First with peanut M&Ms (failure), then tiny toy dinosaurs (second failure), and then with small bags of 100% fruit juice gummy bears (epic success). Now I sit here with a little boy that asks to go potty and brings his favorite book with him to ensure he stays on long enough. While he did take a minute to reach this he exceeded milestones in other categories so his pediatrician and we were not worried. As my friend would say, he won't go off to college in diapers. To all other potty training parents - good luck and keep hope!
Posted Aug 14, 2018, 12:59 PM UTC
It is so hard, I’ve been trying to potty train my son who just turned two and he’s just not ready yet. I’m not going to push it, this does give me some hope that we are doing the right thing and not forcing it.
I definitely second the waiting. Last thing you want is to make potties traumatizing, which they are inherently apparently. Otherwise, you'll have to invest in a carpet cleaner. Eventually they'll never feel clean enough and you'll look into replacing them. Waiting is cost-effective.
Tiny Ruler will be 2 on the 3rd. She is just now to the point where she recognizes the need to poop and will come tell me by patting her butt and making the yucka sound. I ask her if she has to poop and she says please. I ask her if she wants to go to the potty and she says please. We get in the potty and I ask her if she wants to poop on the potty and she vehemently refuses.
It's a process. We'll all get there.