I’ve talked about potty learning before. And the thing is, I’m not some kind of professional, or wizard, with lots of sage advice or tricks up my sleeve.
But also. It’s been really easy with all my kids thus far.
Miss H was kind of magical, I admit. We had no idea what we were doing and zero plans. J and I hadn’t even discussed potty learning. Like, it wasn’t even a thought in our minds. But she went every where we did, so naturally, she got super curious about the potty early on. At 14 months she was asking to sit on the potty, and by 16 months she was wearing chonies (underwear) pretty much full time during the day (nighttime is a different story).
Mr. B had zero interest in the potty so I assumed he’d be my kid in diapers until he was 3 and I wasn’t really that concerned because I just don’t have the time or energy to stress over those sorts of things. Like, whether he used the toilet on his own at 18 months or age 5 didn’t make a difference to me; either way I wouldn’t be changing his diapers in college. But low and behold, a little over a month before his second birthday he asked for chonies with airplanes while shopping one day. We bought them, he put them on at home, and that was that. Literally. I think he maybe had three accidents after that. Ever.
Sweet M was pretty much as easy, but we were in Hawaii and I was more hesitant to put him in chonies full time, even once he was very consistently using the potty, because omg. Traffic. Honolulu traffic is nothing like Midwest traffic and I really didn’t want accidents in the car seats because that’s a pain to clean out. (But I also wash their car seats way too frequently because – food. So I probably shouldn’t have worried.) Anyway, on his 2nd birthday I pulled the trigger, put him in chonies, told him no more diapers, and that was that. He had a very small handful of accidents that week, but none in the car. Though there were a few days when we’d have to pull over several times in a 30 minute span for him to go potty, but whatevs. It was short lived fun and that was that.
I figured Bean was going to be it then. She’d be the one in diapers forever. But just like all the others, she showed an early interest. And at 20 months, I haven’t pulled the trigger on no diapers at all, but she is naked or in chonies 90% of the time, and has approximately 0-2 accidents a day. Again, it’s more me than anything, I imagine. She’s pretty committed (there is definitely a thrill for her when she squeals “shi shi in the potty, Mommy!” as we are driving down the road), and most of the accidents occur in situations where she does tell me (because I don’t believe in taking a kid to the potty every x amount of minutes, because that’s too much work and I’m too lazy for that, haha), but we just don’t get to a toilet fast enough. Fortunately, it’s getting warm though so she can rock the t-shirt and chonies look, and it makes things easier. She’s been the most drawn out process of all of my kids, but even still, it’s been easy and stress free.
I figure most kids likely have the ability to be potty learned early on. I know it’s common place in many other countries. Again though, I’m not an expert.
Being present, being aware and alert, offering lots of opportunities where they can choose the potty, talking about the potty, reading about the potty, and not stressing or forcing it all seem to have been and currently be pretty important key components for all of my kiddos in potty learning.
And before you think I just have super easy, malleable kids, I assure you, I do not. Not one of them is “easy,” but damn, they’re all loveable and amazing. Bean’s current favorite two phrases are “I don’t like that” and “I don’t want that.” And she wears the same ratty dinosaur dress her Aunt Bucky bought her almost every single day by shrill-shrieking choice (it’s probably why I always call her my sweet, angel baby, haha). My kids are stubborn and opinionated, but they also like to be in charge. And having control where their potty learning is concerned makes them feel quite mighty, I infer.
Having us praise them every time they succeed, and not being upset or frustrated when they don’t quite make it, makes it a smooth-sailing, stress-free process.
And now that Bean is pretty much out of diapers (except on the playground, I am still mostly worried she is going to pee on the slide and ruin it for everyone, ha), I guess we will see how sweet Fimito decides to finish our potty learning easy streak.
Until then.