Potty Training Savannah

 Potty Training Savannah

One day we decided to go get our grub on at the Cheesecake Factory. As chance would have it they seated us next to a couple who also had a few small children. Shockingly, we started talking about our kids. During the chit chat, somehow the topic of potty training came up. At the time, Savannah was still in diapers, but we were thinking about it. The husband of this couple told us that all they did was let their son run around naked for about a weekend while taking him to the toilet every 15 minutes to build the habit of going. If I’m not mistaken they basically told us that he was pretty much potty trained after that weekend. So in our minds we were like “Dope. Sounds easy. When the time comes we’ll definitely give it a try.”

Eventually, we did give it a try. We stripped her diaper off and tried to stay as consistent as possible with taking her every 15 minutes; phone timer activated. After the first few times she didn’t seem to be loving the idea of what was going on. It seemed like we were cramping her playtime style a little bit; too many interruptions. So we then tried to use Skittles and Starbursts as some “conditioning reinforcement” every time she would simply sit on the toilet; even if she didn’t “go.” Regardless of what we tried though she just kept peeing in random places around the house. Which was fine at first because initially you've got to expect at least a couple accidents. However, as her “shooting percentage” continually dwindled, the patience began to dwindle as well.

She did end up “going” a couple times in the toilet but very sporadically and with no type of consistency. The look in her eyes was one of “I don’t really know what’s going on” and she didn’t really seem to be connecting what we were trying to accomplish. This, along with many opportunities to improve our pee clean-up game, led us to temporarily wave the white flag and put her diapers back on. We would still try to catch her when she would disappear to go “boop” to try and get her to do it on the toilet, but every time I would pick her up in that moment, she would act as if I was a stranger attempting to abduct her; seemed fairly traumatic. Lol So we basically just chalked it up to her not being ready and gave up for the time being.

I can’t remember how much time had taken place since the white flag waving(a few months at least), but one day we were at Walmart and decided to get her a little Minnie Mouse toilet. Our thinking was that she would think it was so cool that she would want to sit on it and use it. Anyways, the day we got it, Savannah and Ray were joyfully playing with it in the bathroom. They were loving it and continuously pressing the buttons that would make the artificial flushing sound; it was a dope toilet. Lol Anyways, as they played, Savannah was definitely giving off the vibes that she viewed this as a baby toy meant more for Ray than for her. She played around with it for a little bit and then all of the sudden out of nowhere simply climbed up on the real toilet and went to the bathroom on her own. Then she did it again. And again. And again… Literally the only thing we did was to help her flush and wipe but she just kept using the toilet on her own. It was the craziest thing. 

She’s rarely had any accidents since that day and we basically did nothing to potty train her; she did it on her own with a little help from an overpriced, plastic Minnie Mouse toilet. Who would have thought… 

So whenever the topic comes up, based on our experience, I just tell whoever to just let the kid rock and roll whenever they’re ready. I’ve read that pushing too hard in this area could end up being fairly traumatic for the kid long-term. Don’t know how factually accurate that is but take it for what it’s worth.

Anyways, peaceeeeeeee.