I have two daughters who were both potty trained fairly early. My oldest daughter, who just recently turned 7, was fully potty trained at about 2 1/2 and my youngest completely out of pullups in the daytime at just over a month after her 2nd birthday. No, I am not the potty training genie and I promise you I am NOT here to brag. Quite the contrary. You see, potty training is one of the areas of parenting I was able to achieve great success in not because it was easy, but actually because it was hard! It was not the perfect process, nor were my methods gold-medal worthy, especially in the beginning.
My unexpected success in getting my children to use the bathroom so early on was because this was ironically the area of parenting that caused me the most stress. This is my theory on why I think this is so. Many moons ago, someone once told a mom that her success as a mother will lean very heavily on her ability to fully potty train her children by the time they are 2 years old. Extra brownie points if it’s sooner. This ridiculous notion then got passed down through the mom-osphere as an unspoken rule and should be considered a sure sign of failure if it doesn’t happen (insert massive eye roll).
There are too many pressures on moms to potty train.
The point I am trying to make is that there are so many societal pressures put on moms about when it’s acceptable for their children to be potty trained. They are then judged so harshly if they don’t achieve that level of success. Whether you know their story or not. As you can imagine, as a 22-year-old first-time mom, I was certainly not immune. I felt the same pressures that resulted in me forcing my 18-month-old to “poop in the potty” even though she was clearly not ready. She would get annoyed and eventually frustrated with me every time I would make her sit on the potty. I didn’t understand why my child couldn’t use the potty like a “normal” kid. To me, her inability to just “get it” coupled with my ignorance resulted in extreme anxiety and frustration for both of us.
After much reflection I set out to educate myself about childhood milestones. I began to accept the idea that they are just guidelines to help but never to be a carbon copy rule book. I was finally able to relinquish some control and allow my daughter to just lead. It was a monumental moment for me in my new journey as a mom. I put potty training on the back burner and we didn’t revisit the topic again until my daughter finally started showing signs at around 2 years and 4 months. This was a solid 10 months later and once we started trying again, everything just clicked for both of us. By the time my second daughter came around and it became time to potty train, the process was so much easier. It was way less stressful because I carried over the lessons I’d learned with my oldest.
The bottom line:
In the end, the main takeaway from this story is that when it comes to potty training their kids, moms should be left alone to work on this at their own pace. More importantly, at their children’s pace. My second go at potty training, I allowed my daughter to lead. I took note of her cues and encouraged where necessary.
Most importantly, I didn’t allow society to dictate when my child was potty trained. This should be especially so for new moms who might be feeling like they need to have their kids wiping and flushing on their own by age 3. Any experienced mom can tell you, actually getting your toddlers/preschoolers to the point of finally using the potty unassisted is only half the battle. Once that milestone is complete, then comes the part about teaching them how to wipe correctly. But, that’s a whole other story entirely.
