Oh, Shit! She did it (eventually). A messy road to learning to use the toilet...

Okay, potty ‘training’, or learning to use the toilet ( because the ‘training’ bit takes me back to training my dog to pee outside 8 years ago)… where do I start?

Potty training has got a significant amount of press recently, mainly because of the seriously click-baity statistic that one in four children are starting school at reception age not fully toilet trained. Similar numbers have been quoted in relation to basic life skills, such as eating independently and using a knife and fork.

Whilst I have views on the latter, I’m certainly no expert when it comes to potty training. But I do know that media coverage in recent months has got more parents thinking about it. It’s also got members of the public weighing in with their personal opinions on the subject, and making gigantic leaps in terms of what that ‘means’ in terms of parental capability in the UK. Eugh. Like we need more pressure and guilt piled on?

I’m not qualified to comment on any of that. Nonetheless, I wanted to share our experience of helping our daughter learn to use the toilet, in the hope that an honest reflection on the messy road (in more ways than one!) might help someone else.

Why did we start?

To my surprise, Martha started showing interest in the toilet in the winter of last year (around 19mo). I assume she’d seen a small number of children using the toilet at nursery and was curious and keen to explore it.

For me, my approach to parenting is very much about meeting my daughter where she’s at and responding to her needs in terms of her development. I don’t want to force independence on her, but I absolutely want to be able to support her when she wants to learn or try something new.

So despite being grossly unprepared for this I decided it was time for me to get up to speed on what I ‘needed’ to do as a parent.

What did we do?

We love reading in our house, so I grabbed a few books. Poo Poo Bum Bum Wee Wee was my personal fave- although you won’t be able to get it out of your head for weeks. The Potty Badge (Hey Duggee) was Martha’s fave. This worked really well and Martha enjoyed learning the new words associated with toileting and the socialisation of it.

I had absolutely NO IDEA what I was doing, so on the advice of multiple mum friends I bought ‘Oh Crap! Guide to Potty Training,’ and read through as much as I could and decided to go with this approach- because that’s what ‘everyone’ does.

We bought a toilet style ‘at home’ potty, and a travel potty for out and about, and lots of knickers.

Then, we set a date over the Christmas break when we had plenty of time at home to give it a go.

The ‘Oh Crap!’ method

Disclaimer, this book/ method came highly recommended to me by mum friends who’d had loads of success with it. In short, this method of potty training involves breaking up the process of potty training into specific blocks. Block 1 your child is naked and you watch them like a hawk during their waking hours so you can learn their ‘cues’ and try and catch their accidents and encourage use of the potty.

Once your child largely masters that they move on to Block 2, which essentially involves going commando in lose fitting clothing. Block 3 and 4 underwear is introduced along with short ventures outside the house etc etc.

As I mentioned, I know many parents who highly recommend this method and for whom this has worked, but it did not work well for Martha. And I don’t mean because we barely made it out of Block 1 in the space of a week. It’s also because it made her (and us) really really miserable.

Martha is naturally fiercely independent and really wants to be able to do things herself. She’s often reluctant to do things with help or support even initially, but paradoxically, she also wants to feel like she’s in control and capable of achieving the thing she’s trying to do. When it comes to learning you can’t always have both of those things at the time. Her initial interest in the toilet turned into a complete mistrust of it. She would no longer sit on it independently, and she started withholding wee and poo for a pretty stellar amount of time as a result. Whilst we did as advised and tried to take all of the pressure out of the situation, the method still feels pretty brutal at times. The final straw was when I got a call on her first day back at nursery to say she hadn’t been to the toilet (with or without a nappy) for 7 hours and I needed to come and collect her. She was so upset, and took a long time for me to help her relax until she could finally go. She pee’d on my lap during a cuddle in the end- and honestly, I was just relieved she’d gone! We left the potty out in the house, but we didn’t mention it again for some time.

I felt like I’d failed her because she’d gone from interest and finding the toilet a fun thing to learn about to absolutely melting down at the mere mention of it despite our best intentions.

The miraculous poo…

Then a few weeks ago Martha and I were having our evening post-nursery chill watching a bit of Bing. She got up off the sofa and made her way over to the potty, opened it, and sat down. I didn’t make a sound…

She then proceeded to sit for 20 mins dropping some pretty impressive logs. All by herself. When she finished she got up to check it out and looked a bit concerned saying ‘Oh dear’ pointing at said logs, at which point I swooped in to comfort her and reassure her that those logs were definitely something to be proud of. You go girl!!

We go again…

Shortly after this we had a very warm bank holiday weekend with no plans. I thought right… let’s give it another shot and see how we go. No pressure. No rules. No method per se.

We woke up on the Friday and I said “Hey, shall we throw our nappies in the bin today?” Martha was well up for it! She went naked on the bottom for the day with a t-shirt on top so she could feel more comfortable and a bit less vulnerable. I reminded her every hour or so where the potty was in case she needed it but never sat her on it. We had a few accidents, but it was waaaaay less messy, way less stressful, and way more fun than round 1. Luckily the weather way glorious so we could play in the garden and splash in the paddling pool for fun.

By day 3 I felt we were ready to venture out. We did knickers, clothes, and ventured to the local park. No accidents!

And then back to nursery. This has been a challenge the past couple of weeks with Martha has been having 2-3 accidents per day whilst at nursery, although she has been using the toilet successfully as well. The nursery have been super supportive and were so excited when I brought her in on the first morning and told them “We’ve got news- no nappy on today!” Yesterday, she had her first accident free nursery day. I was so shocked at pick up to discover that she was wearing the same outfit I dropped her off in! I was absolutely over the moon.

Progress has been steady and positive. And what’s more is, whilst our first try felt pretty horrendous, the second time around has actually been a breeze overall. We’ve all quite enjoyed it! And I’m so proud of her.

I can see Martha’s really growing in confidence now she’s understanding and responding to her own needs more.

Out and about still needs a bit more work. There haven’t been any accidents for some time but she’s not always comfortable to ‘go’ in public so will hold it until we get home. So we’ll keep working on helping her get comfy with this.

Take the advice. Trust your instinct.

That has to be my main take away from this experience. As a first time mum, you’re keen to seek out all the advice on what you ‘should’ be doing and how to handle particular things. That’s not wrong- there’s so much to learn from experts.

But, that expertise should also be used alongside your own instincts. You know your child, and you know your family and what works for you. I’m so glad I paused on potty training the first time around rather than continue with what I was told I ‘should’ be doing when I realised it wasn’t right. And I’m glad that I took the advice given and adapted it the second time around to help Martha succeed in learning to use the toilet.

The first time around we all felt pretty beaten up by the whole thing. I genuinely believed (and still do) that Martha was ‘ready’ the first time around. But the way we approached it just wasn’t helpful. That being said we all learned a lot from it and there’s no shame in it. Without ‘failing’ the first time around, I really don’t think we’d learn all we needed to support Martha this time around.

How are you feeling about potty training? If you’ve already started, how’s it going? Feel free to comment!

Handy links to helpful stuff

Poo Poo Bum Bum Wee Wee Book (Mum & Dad's fave)

Hey Duggee: The Potty Badge Book 

Pote Pals Potty (Martha loves the flush button)

Bear Potty Training Seat (for when they want to use the 'big' toilet without falling in)

My Carry Potty (Seals up nice and tight and easy to carry around. Loads of cute designs. Martha was in her Finding Nemo era when we got this so obviously the orange fish was a hit)