I struggled potty training my eldest daughter. I was too ambitious. I started when she was 1-and-a-half years old. It was a disaster. There were pools of susu (urine) everywhere, every 30min or so. She did not want to go near the potty. She cried when she saw it. We decided to take a break and would try again every other month or so without success. By the time she got to two years, she would only go for number 1 in the potty and would request for a diaper so as to go for number 2. If I denied her, she would wait for the night diaper and the first thing she would do was poop. This persisted until she was about three years old when she agreed to poop in the potty, and was now only on night diapers. The night diapers would overflow by morning, no matter the brand I got. She would always wake up soaked and wet. It was extremely frustrating, and I gave up.
With her brother, I decided to wait till he got to two years before we started potty training. When it was time, somehow a friend convinced me that at two years one can potty train BOTH day and night. It sounded drastic and impossible, but I was willing to try. When my eldest turned 3-and-a-half and still on night diapers, my son turned two. My Husband and I decided, that this was it. No more diapers. We had a talk with both children and helped them say and emphatic ‘goodbye’ to all the diapers. We put away all the onesies (rompers) they used to sleep in and instead bought comfortable trousers for the night. we limited their evening water intake starting 6pm (bedtime is 9pm). We set our alarms and started out by waking them up three times in the night to susu. The first night was dry, and we were encouraged to continue. Judging from the amount of susu, we realized the eldest did not need three wakings, she only needed two, and within three months these reduced to zero as her bladder control improved. And the few nights when she really needed to go, she woke us up at night.
Meanwhile, my son quickly adjusted to potty training both during the day and night as we gave him no other option, no plan B, and no going back. We had a few accidents on the sofa, and at times he would sneak out to poop outside in the yard, but these lasted not more than two weeks. After the two weeks he no longer had accidents. Throughout the journey we kept encouraging them using a reward system and sometimes would get very hard on them and apply behaviour correction, especially when they got out rightly naughty. In about six months, my son’s night wakings reduced to only one and then none. We do have very random night accidents when they indulge in fluids in the evenings, but anytime, these are better than buying diapers. We were so much pleased with the results and that we decided this is the best approach going forward – using both the carrot and the stick in a balanced manner. Our experience with baby number 3 was similar, but baby #4 resisted in a manner that only a last born can (sigh). I will be writing about that soon.
What was your experience potty training your child? Please share in the below comments section.
