So here we are in week three of potty training and I am dealing with a very stubborn boy. Potty training stubborn boy is currently summing up my existence. He is just like a mini me and that is hugely frustrating as I don’t whether to laugh at ‘me’ or get irritated by his seeming lack of progress. I know that it can take some time to fully train and that boys take longer than girls believe me everyone I know and some people I don’t feel the need to tell me this, but it is hard to be patient when you are convinced that he is doing it on purpose…
Don’t get me wrong he really has been doing very well in that we have very few accidents and in fact most days no accidents, but he will not let me know when he needs a wee. I have been relentlessly reading Pirate Pete’s Potty to him and he is very clear on where he needs to do his wees. He will go when I ask although it is often not willingly and we have regular potty related stand offs where he refuses to make that 5 second journey to the potty. He doesn’t as a rule then go on to wet his pants he will simply hold on until such a time as he decides he is willing to head to the potty or until I am so convinced that a mess must be on its way that I carry him to the potty. There doesn’t seem to be any regularity or pattern to when he is willing and when he refuses so I am never sure what I am going to get. It would seem to me that it is just him asserting his independence. He is so stubborn that I feel like the more I push the more he will dig his heels in and say no. Just today I asked him if he wanted to go for a wee and he replied ‘no not yet I will go after I play’ We had a lengthy discussion about the merits of this option and that this was likely to result in an accident as he had just had a big cup of water, but he was unconvinced by my assertions and just said ‘no mummy I think ill play first’ I want him to take responsibility for going to the toilet and I have read that it is important to allow this so I let him carry on and run off to play with his friends.  I am loath to constantly be nagging him or forcing him to go to the potty when he is insisting that he doesn’t need to, but at the same time I want to avoid the endless washing, ironing and floor mopping that result from repeated accidents. On this occasion I missed the cue of him going quiet as I was so busy stopping our littlest one picking up sticks and eating them and so I ended up with a toddler sitting him a ditch he had dug with very wet clothes. To add insult to injury because he was bending over when he was playing his top was also covered in wee and then just to make sure I really looked like a rubbish mummy I hadn’t brought him a change of top so he had to go home in his little brother’s 9-12mth old body suit. Thank goodness he had a body warmer with him so we could at least cover up my faux pas 😉 This is just one example of countless debates he and I are currently having about whether or not he needs a wee! Who knew I would ever spend this much time concerned with bodily functions especially not my own…
I would love to work out how to take the next step and move from me asking him and then eventually insisting that he go for a wee to him volunteering that he needs to go. This will be this weeks mission and then once we hopefully crack that I will attempt to solve the problem of the poos!!
This process really is far more involved that I had appreciated and I am now pretty proud of myself every time I go to the loo as it seems there is a lot to remember. Give yourself a pat on the back to if you have managed to not have an accident today. We humans really are quite a clever bunch 🙂
Kx
