Potty Training: Maybe It’s Us?

The drama continues.

When Bean told us that she used the potty at daycare, and in fact even made a “poop” in the potty there, we were dubious. She’s at that age where she tells “stories” (read: fibs) freely, and often it’s hard to know what to believe and what to doubt. But discussion with her teachers confirmed that she was, indeed, not only using the potty several times a day, but actually making the occasional poop in it as well. They said her pull-ups were usually dry when they changed them, meaning that she was doing almost ALL of her toileting in the actual toilet. WOW!

OK, how come we can’t get her to do this at home? When one of us asks her to go to the potty, you’d think the thing was made out of red-hot iron dipped in acid. “Nooooo! I don’t have to! Noooooo” is the typical response. And our toilet is not that much different from the little toilet she uses at school. In fact, we had a potty chair for her once, and she hated it. She prefers to sit on the real toilet, and there was a time when she did so joyfully and frequently – she just lost interest in it at some point.

So anyway, today is a BIG day. Daycare teachers sent a note home on Friday saying our Bean is ready for panties, and that we should send her to school today with lots of changes of underwear and clothes. Fingers crossed, people. I had her in panties for most of Saturday, and she did do reasonably well with a few trips to the toilet, but she still managed to wet three pairs of underpants too…she just doesn’t want to stop whatever she’s doing and pee. I’ll be interested to hear what kind of “panty churn” goes on at daycare today.

Who knows? Maybe they will succeed where I (so far) have failed. I have no doubt that they’re more patient than I am, and they’ve certainly toilet trained more kids than I have (since the Bean is our first and only). Maybe we’re just doing it wrong, and if the daycare ladies can do it right, then I’m OK with that. I mean heck, they get PAID to do this stuff. And I’m not abdicating my parental responsibilities here, I’m just supplementing them with a little professional help. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Right?