Potty Training: An UNsuccessful Story

Because every post about Sadie needs a cute picture of said little girl. :)

Are you ready for this?

I’m not completely sure I am. But, crazy as it sounds, I feel almost dishonest not writing about something so pivotal in my little world. I write about everything else. And I do have a strict “keep it real” policy. :) I just have one request. I’m super sensitive about this and pretty much feel like a failure of a parent, so judge me kindly. I know it was super easy for your kid. Not so much with mine.

Here we go… our not-so-good potty training experience so far.

I’m just going to start by saying that when we started out almost 6 months ago, Sadie was ready. Or she was showing all the signs of being ready, anyways, and she was extremely excited. So any argument based on me starting her when she wasn’t ready doesn’t really hold.

And I had a plan. Let me tell you, I had a plan. I did lots of research and settled on a fun routine that would work best for us. We made it a party. We had little prizes and treats and lots of juice. She got to watch movies and I got her this awesome little potty watch that sings every 30 minutes to remind her to run to the potty (which I still love and fully intend on using in the future). It started out okay. We had the usual couple of accidents. The details are a little foggy now, but I know she had some success as well. She seemed excited about it and I tried really hard to make it fun for her.

BUT somewhere along the way (and I still to this day am not sure exactly how, when, or why), Sadie developed a terrifying fear of actually going potty. I’m going to leave the details out because I know she’ll probably read this someday and be appalled enough that I’m writing about it on the internet. But basically, she's totally okay until it comes right down to actually going. The other night, I sat next to her for almost an hour as she screamed and cried because she was scared to go.

And here’s where it gets sticky. I know from an outside perspective, the logical solution would be to just drop it and let her get over her fear. But we tried that. After that first attempt almost 6 months ago, I was done for awhile. I was 7 months pregnant and wasn’t up for the emotional toll it was taking on me. So we took a 3-month break. But the problem is (and here’s the clincher), she really, really wants to be able to do this. She asks me about it all the time. How can I say no?

I just don’t think time is going to solve this one. My mom and Kevin both have been suggesting that I just need to get her through the whole process a few times so she can see it’s not that bad. But when I have to sit there and watch her scream and cry, I can’t help but wonder if I’m seriously scarring her. I’m probably dooming her to being an emotional, psychotic wreck because I’m “making” her go potty. Plus, the kid has crazy good bladder control (she held it for almost 10 hours straight… what kind of a 2-year old can do that, seriously?!) which means it takes all day to get her to go once and get through the process. And by then, both she and I are at the end of our ropes.

On the other hand, the girl is just really emotional – about everything. Maybe I’m over-thinking it. Maybe I should just smile and sing and clap through her emotional breakdowns and she’ll eventually see that it’s not something to be scared about.

I do know one thing for sure. This is, by far, the most difficult thing I’ve had to do as a parent in my tiny little window of experience. I think it even beats the awful experience that was breastfeeding. And the worst part is I have no clue where to go from here. I wish I could go back. Start over from scratch, you know? Problem is, I don’t know what I’d do different!

Moral of the story? Potty training sucks. Big time.