A tip on potty training

A couple of weeks ago I blogged that Eliana was officially potty trained. Here is a bit of the process...

Nate and I decided to do the "potty training in a day" method (although it really takes a week). We used Toddlerwise*, by Ezzo and Bucknam for advice on potty training (don't buy it, borrow it from the library). You basically stay at home for a week, put your child in undies (Summer is the best season), feed your child lots of drink and salty snacks (so that they drink more), and use a doll to help explain the potty process to your child. Every time they have an accident, you bring out the doll to go through the potty process with your child again. Any successes are rewarded.

Eliana showed signs of readiness and we wanted to do it before Nate went back to work (it would have been impossible with just me, Eliana and Lilah) so we cleared our schedule. Day one saw about 15 accidents with a few successes, day two had about 10 very small accidents but by the afternoon Eliana seemed to be getting it. Then came day 3. Eliana didn't want to have an accident, but she became too scared to go on the potty. This meant she would hold on for ages, yet she seemed very uncomfortable. This went on for 2 days. It. Was. Tough. I was ready to give up. Nate persevered, but he says it's possibly the hardest thing he has had to do in parenting so far. We prayed A LOT, we made the bathroom a fun place to be, and we eventually started dancing and singing the song "poo poo in the potty" (from the movie, Look Who's Talking II) whenever Eliana said she needed to go. At the end of day 4, Eliana made some progress and on day 5, there were no more accidents and Eliana was happily going on the potty.

The next week was great. Then Nate went back to work. I don't know if it's connected, but the day Nate went back to work, Eliana seemed to regress. She began fearing doing poos on the potty. We looked on the internet and saw that a lot of children experienced the same fear, but we could only find one success story. So now it comes to my tip. This is what seems to be working for us so far. After a lot of distress, I decided to bring our laptop into the bathroom so that Eliana could watch kids music clips on You Tube while sitting on the potty. She loves this. It's her only 'screen time' of the day, so maybe that helps. We usually only do it once a day, after breakfast, which has always been her 'regular' time. The first couple of times trying this saw us in the bathroom for about 40-50 minutes. There were still a few tears when 'it came down to it' and I had to encourage her to stay on the potty when it looked like it was really time to go. After a week of this, she has gradually been taking less time and producing less tears. For the last few days she has been going without tears, and before I can even get a music clip up. She still enjoys her "speshtal tweat" afterwards too :)

So for now, I say that Eliana is imperfectly potty trained. It's 1000 times nicer than nappies! :)

* I wouldn't recommend Toddlerwise for anything other than the potty training and some practical advice. The rest seems to have an empty focus, centering on the child's behaviour rather than their heart. Jesus said "Out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45) and "Every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit." (Matthew 7:17) My children's hearts need to know Jesus and submit to Him if I want them to truly produce 'good fruit' all of their days.

I would recommend, Shepherding a Child's Heart, by Tedd Trip, and Gospel Centred Family, by Moll and Chester. I haven't read Give Them Grace, by Elyse Fitzpatrick and her daughter, Jessica Thompson, but I've heard it is also an excellent book on parenting and it's on my "to read" book list.