The Good, The Bad, and The Smelly

On the growing list of "things I never thought I'd say but have as a parent" I can now add the phrase "I'll rewind it for you so you can see Elmo's underpants!"

Elmo is a favourite in our house, and he wears big boy underpants like a big boy! He is an inspiration to potty training Sesame Street fans everywhere, I would imagine. Sadly, despite the underwear choices of his hero, my son balks at the mere mention of big boy pants. He has tried them on exactly two times, and almost immediately burst into tears on both occasions. Despite all of our early success, and the many signs that he was ready, my son is in fact, not ready to use the potty.

We were so hopeful when we started this journey. My son has a baby sister now, so we have two kiddos in diapers. My husband and I were so excited when my boy started showing an interest in the potty, "maybe we would only have one in diapers soon!" we thought foolishly. We tried so hard to encourage him, we bought books about the potty, Elmo being the obvious favourite here. I reworked the lyrics of several 90's dance songs to say "Potty Time" anywhere "Party Time" had previously appeared. I am certain our neighbours wonder about my sanity, as oddly the bathroom is the only room in our apartment where you can clearly hear all of your surrounding neighbours. ( This is a really awkward bit of a design flaw in my opinion, but I digress.)

We really hyped up the whole potty experience. We tried 3 different types of potty seats. The clear leader, unsurprisingly, being the Sesame Street seat with our favourite red monster front and center. His first couple of tries went great! He was excited and so were we, everyone in the house was getting high-fives and congratulations for a job well done after every flush. Oh, and the flushing, the flushing was the best part, of course. He would stand next to the potty waving and shouting "Bye Pee!" before getting to flush it all by himself!

Interest began to wane after the first week or so. So we upped our game, in that we started in on the bribery reward system. Stickers and candies were handed out liberally for every successful trip. It worked, or it seemed to at least. We even had a three day stretch with no accidents at all! We were almost there! Maybe he could sense our delight? I'm not sure what changed, but the next day, he no longer wanted to potty. He complained every time. We kept trying, he kept getting worse. Until finally he refused to go at all if it was not in his pull ups.

Much to our disappointment, we were not about to be done with diapers anytime soon. My husband and I discussed it. We considered stronger measures, the fail proof 3 day method, the no-fail one week to a fully trained toddler method. In the end we just asked him. He said he didn't want to potty. He wanted to wear diapers. So he helped us pack up the stickers, and the potties, and the pull-ups. We told him, if he ever wants to use the potty all he has to do is ask. For now though, we are done potty training, though not in the way we expected to be.

The thing is, all of the other fool proof methods just seem so stressful. We know our kiddo, and he is not a fan of change. He needs time to adjust. He hasn't been given much time to adjust lately. The pandemic was a big change, and none of us knew exactly how long it would last. He has a new sister, and he loves her, but that was a big change too. We are hopeful we will be purchasing a house soon, another big change he has little say in. So if my little dude needs to wear diapers a little longer, before he decides he can take on another big change, then so be it.

We will try again in a few weeks, maybe even a month if he doesn't ask to use it sooner. Until then, we will keep changing what feels like a hundred diapers a day, and I will take some comfort in the fact that my little boy isn't such a big boy just yet. It's possible mom is not always a big fan of changes either, especially the growing up kind.