Remember the scary potty from “Look Who’s Talking Too?”
Well… before vacation I kept saying, “the baby is showing an interest in the potty. We should probably start considering toilet training.
But it’s just silly to do that, right before a big trip. All those hours in the car, routines disrupted, sheer exhaustion, over-stimulation… better to wait.
Now vacation is over.
To train or not to train? That is the question.
There are a lot of moms who can’t wait for the day their kid is out of diapers. No more scraping stinky poo off the baby!
I don’t really feel that way.
Diapers are REALLY convenient. I use cloth so, now that I have my stash all set there’s virtually no expense. And if I’m in the grocery store and my boy pees in his diaper… no big deal. I can finish up what I’m doing and clean him up when we are done. No worries! If he falls asleep on the four-hour drive to my sister’s house, I’m not at all concerned. He’s wearing a great diaper. If he suddenly gets the urge while we are at the fair, miles from any bathroom other than a horrible stinky port-a-potty… let it go, son! The diaper will catch it.
If I potty train him and he says he has to go, I will have to drop EVERYTHING and take him to the potty.
My best friend remembers me doing this in the middle of a parade once with my daughter when she was three and bundled in 63 layers of clothes including snowpants. We were desperately running in and out of stores looking for a place that would have mercy on us because when a toddler says they have to go, they are saying, “it’s starting to come out RIGHT NOW.” Washing those 63 layers (not to mention defrosting her wet, frozen tushy) would be WAY more work than changing a diaper! I knew if we didn’t get to the potty fast enough there would be tears and frustration and the Christmas Festival would be over for our family. Oh, how I longed for the days of the diaper!
And that phase lasts for years! It seemed she didn’t really get the idea of “holding it” until she started kindergarten.
You would think, having done this before, it wouldn’t be that big a deal.
*sigh*
I suppose I can’t leave him in diapers forever. Especially since, being the biggest baby in the world, he is outgrowing everything – even the “one size fits all” cloth diapers.
What’s a mom to do?
I asked my good friend, Google, what I should do. He (I’m quite certain Google is a male since he thinks he always has the answer and often tells me he’s feeling lucky) told me that a child is ready to be potty trained when they wake up dry from naps and have the ability to pull their own pants down.
By this rationale, my sister has one kid that wouldn’t have been potty trained until the 4th grade.
Kidsdr.com says that I should train him at 28.7 months. If I wait until 31.7 months he’ll have urge incontinence and other issues for years to come.
Geez! I better mark my calendar or something!
Let’s see, 24 months will be next June 7. It usually gets pretty warm by late May. Maybe I’ll just strip him naked when we hit 80 degrees and spend the whole summer outside cheering every time I see him go. That way, by autumn, he should have caught on and we can add pants before the snow flies.
More importantly, we will have come in under the crucial 31 month deadline!
Yes!
Do I think that those numbers are entirely arbitrary and nonsensical?
Yes.
But…
I like this plan!
Because it means I don’t really have to think about it for the better part of a year.
