Memoirs of Potty Training a Toddler

I had been thinking about the dreaded “Potty Training” for a while. It had been in the back of my mind, but when I realized that Miri would be starting camp in a few short weeks, and this was the last time she’d be at home full-time, I decided there was no time like the present. On a Wednesday afternoon, we stripped her down to her nudie pants, and here begins our memoir.

The Process

I’ll admit, Miri happens to be a very mature little girl, and I am 100% certain that things will not go as smoothly when it comes to my son, who may be walking down the aisle to get married in pull-ups. Anyways, there’s this thing called the 3-Day Method of potty training. There are tons of books on it — “Oh Crap! Potty Training” is a fan favorite. I didn’t follow this method word-for-word, but we used the general concept, and it worked well for us.

We kept Miri commando for the next 3 days. We made sure to stay close to home, with the farthest adventure being our backyard. At the end of day 2 we tried putting her in pants for about an hour, and she automatically peed. So we kept doing this for another day, and by the end of the third day, I was confident enough that we could bring her on an outing. It happened to be that this outing was a bridal shower for a very good friend of mine, and Miri was in the wedding. We went with all of our potty accouterments + she wore undies for the first time (extra change of clothes, potty treats, portable potty seat, extra potty for the car), and we made our way. Miri likes the world to be “The Miri Show”, and I’ll never forget coming out of the bathroom the first time she went in public and an entire table of women attending the shower started clapping for her. And she ate it right up.

The rest is sort of history, and it’s just become part of our lives now. I know, pretty uneventful. Months later, we still bring a potty seat everywhere we go, and a change of clothes, but I don’t see that changing anytime soon. We chose not to night train Miri because she still happily sleeps in a crib. In order to night train her, we’d have to get her a big girl bed, and really, I’m the one who isn’t ready for that. So she wears Pullups at night, and is often dry, or almost dry, every morning. We also take her to potty in her sleep before we go to bed every night, so she gets in the habit of going potty in the middle of the night.

Our Potty Training Must-Haves:

1. Munchkin Sturdy Potty Seat – we get the one with handles so Miri never has to touch a public potty (EW)
2. BABYBJORN Smart Potty – we keep this in the car JUST IN CASE we ever have to make an emergency pitstop on the side of the highway
3. Cottonelle Freshcare Flushable Wipes
4. Fun Undies
5. Pullups
6. Treats — lots and lots of bribery treats. Be creative here.

What are your tried and true potty methods? I’d love to hear what worked for you! What didn’t? Leave a comment below, and we can all help each other out!

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