Potty Training

Alright in honor of this my fifth mothers day I'm actually going to write about potty training my kids. Since I have potty trained both a boy and a girl I am now an expert. NOT. I am just like everyone else struggling to figure out how many times I have to tell my child not to pee on the carpet or floor, but to pee in the toilet. hahaha

Aiden

Alright well any good Mother's Day blog should start with the oldest and it should always start with baby pictures. This is Aiden when he was around 1 month old. Back when I cared about having a hat on his head. Although he was born in January in Utah, that boy couldn't go anywhere for the first three months of his life without being overly covered to combat sickness and the cold of Utah.

Aiden around 2 years old

So when it came to potty training I always thought that dad's should train boys and mom's should train girls on how to use the bathroom. Now as Aiden is approaching 5 years old he's getting mad that whenever I have to take him to the restroom to use the facilities he reminds me that he's a boy and not a girl. It's amazing the thing that boy notices.

When I was beginning to potty train Aiden I thought at the age of two was a good age to grasp the concept of using the porcelain goddess that the age of 2 was a good age to start. Plus this was when i was pregnant with Layoni quickly approaching and I didn't want two children in diapers.

Aiden and Layoni chilling on the couch

So I pushed and shoved Aiden into using the toilet and letting me know that he had to use the potty. I would ask him every twenty minutes. I thought it was going well. He would always have dry diapers during nap time and over night that was never the issue. But for whatever reason at the age of 2 he wasn't ready. He just didn't understand where to go so the carpet was the next logical place. So I quickly gave up on trying to push him into something that he wasn't ready for.


That is my first piece of advise for mom's getting ready to potty train their children. If your child isn't ready to go potty stop trying to force them. All it's going to result in you wanting to pull your hair out and your child feeling like a failure because they don't understand the concept.

Aiden and Layoni playing on the tablet

So back to our story, I waited another 6 months or so and backed off of Aiden trying to use the toilet. Then one day we went to the store and I bought him some big boy underwear and he loved it, so we went two weeks buck naked around the house and he picked it up *snap fingers* like that. No more accidents, No more oops I peed on the floor.

Piece of advise number 2. Let your kids run around naked, completely naked, for two weeks so that they don't have to worry about underwear or pants when they are already trying to figure out how to pee.

Layoni age 12 months

Now it is becoming Layoni's turn to go through the potty training process. I tried at 2 and 6 months. She didn't want anything to do with. I would go up to her every 20 minutes, do you need to go potty? Twenty minutes later Hey Layoni do you need to go potty? then 10 minutes after I went and sat down *pee* "Mommy, Layoni peed on the floor" "thank Aiden"

Aiden and Layoni

With Layoni I actually got suckered into buying a big huge box of Pull ups from Costco none the less. Worst purchase ever. I bought the box put the pull ups on Layoni and she totally just kept peeing in the pull up. I think because they feel just like diapers. I would tell her over and over again do you need to go potty. Just let me know and she never figured out how to tell me that she needed to go potty.

Aiden, Layoni and Alexander Christmas 2017

Advise number 3. Never buy pull ups. They are just trying to steal your money.


Yeah that was not pleasant to experience. So I had to take my own advise clearly she is not ready or wanting to potty train right now so I decided to wait. Then one day we went shopping and found some little Minnie Mouse and Paw Patrol girl underwear. Bought it and tried to entice her to wear them. At first she was resistant to the idea, but then as she started to identify who the characters actually were she became more excited about wearing them.

The whole family at the
Portland Temple Visitors Center

Back in the day when I first started potty training Aiden I bought this toy toilet, more of a practice toilet, but miniature for kids. Aiden always used it as a toy. To this day he never peed in that sucker or pooped in it either.  Just went straight to toilet. Well I pulled it out of storage for Layoni and she LOVED peeing in it. I'm still trying to figure out how I am going to transition her to the adult toilet. My next adventure, but I'm in no big hurry. Remind me I said this the next time I'm complaining about cleaning up diarrhea or something.

Surprisingly she's becoming very girly. She likes her nails painted, and her hair done, and of course I've taught her to show off to daddy, because every little girl needs to be told from her daddy that she's beautiful.

Alexander (in the little mirror in the corner) Aiden and Layoni

But then after two weeks of no accidents and running errands and thinking YES she's potty trained. She goes in her little toilet and then comes and tells me that she has gone pee. I don't have to remind her, or tell her to go pee. She just takes care of it herself. LOVE IT. So I convinced Zaq to spend some money (believe doing that is like prying his wallet open with a crow bar, especially for toys Oh My Goodness) but needless to say we convince him that she's been great, we should totally reward her for this behavior. So we walk all over walmart, I mean up and down all the aisles of toys. Playing with them and even pulling some down from the upper shelves to see if there is anything that she just simply can't live without. But everything she just puts back on the shelves when we say that it's time to move on. So defeated we didn't buy her anything. I don't know what happened, but the for the next 48 hours she wouldn't pee in her toilet. She peed in nursery. She peed at her babysitters. She peed in front of my computer, even though she was at home and knew where to go potty. I couldn't believe. I don't know what happened whether she knew she was suppose to bring home a reward and that didn't happen or she was just defeated, but this week has been better. No more accidents. Pooping the little toilet and all that jazz, so we'll see if I can convince Zaq to go out and try the reward thing again.

Parenting advise number 4. Reward your kids for the milestones that they accomplish, I'm not saying go out and have a million dollar party, or spend hundreds of dollars on them, but something that lets them know that they are doing good and that they are making right choices are good to let them know.

But that's this little family wrapped up in the nutshell. To the mother's out there with crazy home lives. Happy Mother's Day. To the women out there without children be patient one day it will happen, i know it's not what you want to hear, but I completely understand how you feel that anger in the pit of your stomach that just makes you angry at everything around you. Been there believe me. To those that have lost hope of having children tomorrow is always a new day and if your not careful it could lead to something amazing. To women everywhere Happy Woman's Day lets stand united and celebrate the fact that we're alive and able to breathe.

Happy Mother's/Woman's Day