There’s no hard and fast rule about when and how to toilet train a child, but experts say that if the child is ready, half the battle is won. Some people choose to *make* the child ready by programming them to go potty from the onstart, but I was of the *other* school of thought and only began starting Ethan on toilet training after he turned 3.
Yes, you may have noticed that I hardly blogged about toilet training because I wanted it to happen naturally, or so I thought. I also didn’t wanna jinx the process by blogging about it and then having to retract whatever I had written. You could say that I wanted to wait till the entire process was completed before I wrote about it.
I’m extremely proud of my little boy … now my little man. Although it was a process that took us 3 years to complete, I’m so happy that through it all, he feels a sense of achievement in what he is doing. The initial struggle has been well worth it.
Because once it happens, it just does.
In the Beginning
Ethan was able to let us know when he wanted to poopoo when he was about 2+, and that helped loads. But the peepee portion was the one that was eluding us. I tried taking him to the toilet every now and then, but I could tell he was not ready. Even though he was in cloth diapers then, which were supposed to speed up toilet training, he just wasn’t ready.
We had a few successes during our US relocation, as sometimes he would peepee successfully when we take him to the toilet.
At other times, though, he just wasn’t interested.
So we decided to go cold turkey and put him in underpants. But even then, he would not feel uncomfortable when he had small accidents. Time and again, we went back to square one, and we were not going anywhere. I tried sticker charts (1 sticker for a successful peepee and 2 for a successful poopoo). It worked for a while but then the novelty wore off and he would go back to wearing his pull-ups.
I admit I did worry a little as to when he would be toilet-trained, but then I kept reminding myself that there weren’t any teenagers I knew who weren’t toilet-trained, so I knew the day he would be completely trained would come some day. The question is just when.
Admittedly, it’s difficult when we were in the minority. When people around you tell you about their kids who are toilet-trained since 2, you just have to learn to smile and say, “He’ll be ready soon.”