Milestones: Potty Training

Every milestone we take with our kids can be both scary and exciting. The main event that had my husband and I scared shitless, no pun intended, was potty training. The other milestones had all come and gone with loads of excitement, but the idea of having to teach someone how use their sphincter muscles and pee on command was terrifying.

I had heard so many horror stories of how it didn’t work, how their kids cried and fought every step, or how a kid shit on the floor in the middle of a supermarket (my personal favorite and a story told by my mom). All of these left me potty training gun shy.

I put off potty training as long as I could. I wasn’t going to push her into any developmental stage until she was good and ready and had shown me clear signs she was ready to get on the pot.

So when she started talking about poop and following me into anywhere that resembled a bathroom, I knew I couldn’t avoid potty training any longer. Here are our commandments that lent us to a successful and messy 3 days.

Our first commandment when entering into this wet and wild journey full force was to be COMMITTED. If we were going to do this, we were going to be prepared and fully committed. This means no baby potties and not pull ups: that’s how we roll.

Our second commandment was thou shalt be neked... that’s right, NEKED. It made so much sense to me that a toddler should experience all the senses while learning how to go on the toilet (I mean if we have to, then they should have to, too).

So we kept her the way she came into this world for almost the whole 3 days. Lots of paper towels and close to no contact with the outside world kept us clean and focused.

Lastly, our third and final commandment was: CANDY IS OUR FRIEND. I am definitely not a proponent of utilizing food as praise or taking the easy way out, but in this instance, I concede.

Candy is literally the worst thing you can put in your body, but keeping crap in there for too long can’t be good either. So, giving our little one the motivation to get her poop in the appropriate place just made sense and it worked.

Realizing that she would get a tiny sweet treat after each go kept her motivated and engaged in the process. Now, do all these commandments and commitments mean that she doesn’t pee in her car seat or in the middle of the driveway? No... So we keep laser beam focus everyday on the end goal and never let potty training fall by the wayside. But Rome wasn’t built in a day, even if the bathrooms were.

Little Annabelle perfectly styled in our Watercolor Leaf Joggers HERE.

-Chelsea (make sure to follow Chelsea on Instagram HERE)