I wanna potty!

The prospect of potty training young Jack is very exciting and completely terrifying at exactly the same time.  Potty training is a toddler rite of passage and a welcome elimination of a substantial parental expense.

This is just plain important stuff!

Did we mention we’re starting tomorrow morning?

Pray for us…

Let’s capture our knowledge of how to potty train at this particular moment in time.  This should be good for a nice laugh.

1. Bye-bye diaper
2. Put the underwear on him
3. Take him to his practice potty every 20 minutes
4. Hope for the best!

OMG, this has disaster written all over it!  That can’t possibly be everything there is to it.  When in doubt, hit the web…

Ok, found a great site called Potty Training Concepts.  This oughta help.

Wait a minute…the experts say train him sitting down?  Seriously?  The potential for a mess goes way down, but what if he likes sitting down so much that we can’t get him to stand up like Daddy does?  Apparently that shouldn’t be a big deal down the road.  Also says it’s less confusing because he’s doing the same (sitting) for #1 and #2.  That makes sense.

Moving right along…hold on.  Do we know that he’s ready for this big step?  Let’s see.  There are four indicators.

1. Psychological readiness
2. Motor skills
3. Cognitive/verbal development
4. Emotional/social awareness

This sounds a bit complicated.  What’s the deal here?

Ok, Jack squats, grunts and sometimes runs off and hides when he makes #2.  He doesn’t make #2 during the night.  He tends to go a long time between urinations and fills it up quickly when he’s ready to go.  He also regularly makes #2 a few minutes after lunch and dinner.  According to the website, he’s ready.  But, that’s only one of the four.

Let’s see about his motor skills.  We haven’t really pushed Jack to dress and undress.  He can put his arm into the sleeve and push it up and he can take his shift off with some help.  Hmmm…  He can pull his pants down and thankfully he doesn’t do this at inappropriate times.  Not sure about pulling them back up, though.  We’re gonna to have to play this one by ear.  Two more to go…

Does Jack know the words associated with elimination?  Yes.  Can he follow instructions?  Eventually, yes.  He’s a bit defiant at times.  Hope that won’t be a problem.  He does have very good memory, however.  Also, he imitate extremely well.  Ok, looks like we’re safe on this one.

Last hurdle…does he want to be looked at as a “big boy” and do things on his own?  Most definitely.  He’s very into our approval right now, too.  He’s always asking us to look at what he’s doing.  He also loves to do things like others do them.  He tells stories to himself.  Sometimes Dora and Boots are in them, along with Mommy, Daddy or Mimi.  Shouldn’t be a problem here.

Based on this, he’s ready.  The one thing to watch is the physical act of pulling down his pants and pulling them back up.  If he can’t do this well, we’re going to have a problem to work through.

So do we have the process right?  Are we missing any steps?

You mean “we” have to be ready too?  What does that mean?

1. Tools and supplies
2. Potty training method
3. Child’s development
4. Consequences
5. Child’s perspective

This is starting to sound really complicated!

Equipment wise, we have underwear and a potty chair, but what’s the deal with the “doll”?

Looks like there are 5 well-known potty training methods.  One of them is very unpopular in North America.  Another one is quite messy.  One is made famous by Dr. Phil and it involves a doll.  The other two are gradual, but sometimes not very predictable.  So which one is right for Jack?  Quite frankly we have no clue.  All we know is that the method we wrote above has elements of each of them and that could spell trouble.

Should we really get the show on the road tomorrow?