Potty Training Day 3

Potty training day 3: I’m really trying to find my zen, you guys. It’s been a long one! I thought I was prepared for all the pee pee. I mean, I can throw all the pee pee pants, panties, and shoes in the sink and hand-wash them (because no in-unit laundry means doing a load every hour just isn’t in the cards!) And as for the pee-pee carpet, I can clean that too. K’s pee is mostly water anyways, plus we rent so… . What I was not prepared for was the poop! What to do about the poops ?!

K’s pee is mostly water anyways, plus we rent so…

K woke up this morning and went into the closet, as usual, to take a poop. Only this time she was wearing panties and not a diaper. So I said “Oh no, we do that in the toilet.” So we went over to the toilet and sat. (And I thought to myself, well that was easy !) And then we sat. And sat. For probably half an hour. And then it was time to leave for school. On the way to school, K told me again that she had to poop. So once we got inside, we sat again. And sat… you get the picture. But no poops. I had packed 4 pairs of panties and pants for K (after yesterday I thought we should be prepared) and I told K’s teachers if she pooped to just throw the panties away (sorry, earth .)

And then we sat. And sat. For probably half an hour.

When I picked her up, I totally expected a poop to have happened. But it did not. We went to leave school and K scurried into the bushes and started making poop face, so back into the school we went and another half hour on the potty. Then we came home. Another half hour. I wanted to sit with her and be supportive, but didn’t want her to think I was forcing it. I didn’t want to start putting a diaper on her for poops, but did’t want her to hold it too long and get constipated. (Remember psych101? Didn’t Freud say you could ruin your kid by potty training them wrong?!)

Didn’t Freud say you could ruin your kid by potty training them wrong?!

I had no idea pooping could be so complicated ! And I was running out of hours in the day and was getting worried that if she made it to bedtime and we put a diaper on her, she would just poop in the diaper and a habit would be created where she just went every night in her diaper and not in the potty. So while she was napping I googled what other parents did and came up with the following plan: explain to her that poop is made when your tummy turns food into poop and it’s not a part of her body, dump the poop into the potty together when the time comes, and wave goodbye to the poop as we flush it.

I had no idea pooping could be so complicated

When she woke up and said she had to poop, I told her the food part and within an hour, she pooped on her potty! It terrified her just a little bit but we cheered her on, gave her a sucker, told her what a great job she did, and video called both sets of grandparents . Hopefully we hyped it up enough that she’ll continue to make more poops in the potty! Send good pooping vibes ! And bring on day 4!