Welcome to my first post. I promise not all of these will be about poop.
As we begin the journey of potty training our 2 year old daughter, Mercy, I've been asking around, taking an unofficial poll of family and friends. What age did you start? How long did it take? What tricks did you use? A lot of parenting involves trickery.
I wasn't in a huge hurry to potty train until the birth of our son 6 months ago. Now that I have two in diapers I've hit my limit of cleaning other people's poop by lunch.
The other day, after breakfast, Mercy was unusually quiet and extremely focused.
"Mercy, do you want to go to the potty?"
"No, thank you. Still pooping."
Her manners are impeccable.
My mom told me she used to drag me out from under the table where I went to do my diaper business and demand that I go on the potty while I screamed and cried.
"I wouldn't recommend that," she said.
Regardless of what was done in the past, the current trend in potty training is a rewards system:
1. Get a chart.
2. Get sparkly stickers.
3. Chose a motivating prize.
Every time the kid goes on the potty he gets a sticker to put on the chart. Once he hits, say 30 pees or poops in the toilet, he gets a sucker! a toy! a trip to Disneyland! (If you think I'm kidding, just ask potty trainers in the Southern California area).
Every elimination is celebrated and cheered like a game-winning touchdown. And for the lazy parent, there is a "Cheer For Me" potty that will do the cheering for you. Hooray!
Do I believe that acquiring an important life skill such as toilet training should be celebrated? Absolutely. But there is also a big part of me that says, Hey wait a minute? Isn't this already intrinsically rewarding?
That's so great that you used the potty! You know what your prize is? Not having crap in your pants.
We don't have any princess potty charts or sparkly stickers at our house. We also have a whole lot of poopy diapers.
So, I was going to buy some "potty M&Ms:" candy reward for each use of the potty because Mercy will do anything for chocolate. Then this morning she disappeared for a few minutes while I was tending to the baby. She ran into the living room beaming, completely naked.
"I went pee pee on the potty all by my big self!" she yelled. And indeed she had.
Her reward was dumping her pee from the little potty to the big one, patting herself dry with toilet paper and flushing everything. She was thrilled. I optimistically put some underwear on her and cheerfully made the coffee.
I asked her repeatedly for the next hour if she needed to go again.
"No, thank you."
Then she peed on the ground.
"Mercy, how about we get some potty M&Ms today?"
"Yes, please."
