Training Time

Over time, my ideas of parenting have changed.  Not so much my ideas on parenting, but my personal priorities of what I consider important.  Early on I discovered that getting down to a battle of wills with a toddler over potty training really wasn’t that important to me.  I did that with Silje.  I was determined to have her out of diapers at 18 months as I heard of other people doing.  She was out…for about 2 days.  Then the 9 month battle of dragging her to the bathroom, her refusing to go, etc. started.  O, in the end I won…at least in theory.

With David I decided to wait until he was ready.  I was surprised at how many raised eyebrows and questions I got about it.  I mean, he was out of diapers by 3.  It’s not like it was forever.  One day he decided he was done.  Training him took less than a week.  The number of accidents I dealt with were in the single digits.  To me, I discovered that waiting was certainly the easy way to go.

But then people said that changing diapers for that “extended” amount of time was just so much more work.  I just didn’t seem like work to me, so I guess it’s personal preference.

So I’ve been digging my heals in when the subject gets brought up about Elias as well.  It’s not that he couldn’t go in the potty chair, it’s that he refused to be bribed or anything.  He decided he hated doing that, and that was that.

So I didn’t push it.  Well, I do in a small motherly-passive way.  I call the diapers, “baby diapers.”  I talk about how soon he’ll be a big boy and go in the potty chair.  He will tell me he’s already a big boy, and then I ask him why he’s wearing baby diapers.  I told him when he turned 3, he could start using the potty chair all the time, to which he always replied a simple: “no.”

I honestly do not have time to push a child daily to do something he has no intention of doing.  Kudos to mothers who can dedicate their day to it, but that’s just not logistically possible for me.  On top of that, I’m already washing diapers and changing diapers with Solveig.  It’s not like washing/changing just a few more is really hard.

Well, Elias turned 3, and he still refuses.  We were going to have his big, extended party with all the great-grandparents and Knut’s parents, and a few cousins, but then David got sick and I postponed it.

So just after Thanksgiving we decided to throw together a little shin-dig and guess what?

I guess he needed a party to go potty.

He tells me when he needs to go potty now and I take him there.  It was just like a switch went off in his head.  Now I’ll say: “OK, Elias, it’s time to go potty.”  (I learned long ago never to ask a toddler to go to the bathroom.  It must always be a statement.)  Then he willingly goes, like it’s no big deal.

I still have him in diapers, and that is mostly because I’m lazy.  I feel so guilty over it, but I figure: why not?  We’re going potty all the time now, but we still have accidents multiple times a day.  Soon I’ll take the diapers away and make it more urgent for him to take care of business.  Soon…

I think I may be the ones digging in my heals a bit.  (Really Elias?  Deciding you’re ready in the midst of Christmas preparations with all the baking and parties and warped schedule?  Now you’re ready?)

When I told Knut that I think the party was the turning point for him, he said: “We should have done that a year ago!”  to which I replied…”um…we did.  He actually had a birthday last year too.  It’s funny how that works.”