Battling Potty Training Regression

Saturday, December 17th, 2011

Remember that time I blogged about how Caro potty trained herself?  Yeah… forget I ever said that.

She was pretty much fully potty trained when I wrote that.  And then?  Then she went to Arizona with Tyler for Thanksgiving, and he put her in diapers the whole time.  And she promptly un-potty-trained herself.  I cannot, for the life of me, get her to go on the potty.

I’ve written about degprogramming after visitation before, but this is way worse.  If we’re all being honest, this is pretty much grounds for murder.  Right?  I picture the scenario to go something like this:

Judge: You are here to be sentenced for the murder of your ex-husband.  Do you have anything to say for yourself?

Me: Please, your honor, he un-potty-trained my almost-three-year-old.

::dramatic pause::

Judge: Case dismissed.

(Brutally obvious disclaimer: I am kidding about that, okay, people?)

I know, I know, some of you warned me in comments and tweets that potty training regression might happen.  But I guess I had hoped they were vicious lies.  Turned out you were absolutely correct.  I’ll never doubt you again, internet!

I shouldn’t completely blame Tyler, because regression seems like a pretty common thing.  And I probably shouldn’t have made the final push on ditching the diapers shortly before she went on that trip.  Oh well… poor planning on my part.  But the end result is the same: she will sit on the potty, but she won’t go, and sometimes she’ll beg to put a diaper on and throw a tantrum when I tell her that we don’t do diapers anymore.

(I swore I’d never be that mom who talks about potty stuff on the internet, but well, here we are.  Great to be here with you guys.)

I know that potty training is something that can’t really be pushed, and she’s definitely the sort of kid who has to make it her decision, so I’m kind of at a loss as to what to do.

So I turn to you all, who gave me such great advice about ditching the binky: what do you do about potty training regression?  I hope someone out there has something that worked for them, because preschool age is rapidly approaching, and I’d like to have her re-potty trained so she can start on time!

Potty Training: Can It Really Be This Easy?

Thursday, November 17th, 2011

I love her to death, but nothing about Caroline has ever been easy.

Okay, that’s not completely true.  She slept through the night early on and was pretty consistent about that until I switched her to a big girl bed (at which point she started getting up a million times a night and still hasn’t stopped, five months later).

Other than that, I love her but she’s high-needs to the max.  Starting with the whole NICU experience, through the reflux and the weight loss and the gross motor delay and the picky eating to the extreme and the death grip on the binky, it hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park.  She’s only very recently started to entertain herself for short periods of time, which makes it tough on a single mom who has lots to do.  Let’s just say that I’ve never been one of those moms who has an easygoing kid and thinks parenting is a breeze.

We’ve worked on potty training halfheartedly for months.  I think the real problem was that I was too lazy busy to really get after it.  But she’ll be three this winter, and she’s more than ready for preschool in every other way, so I talked to daycare and we decided to take the plunge.  I put her in big girl underwear and sent her to school with no diapers.  That was yesterday.

She’s had maybe… three accidents total over two days.  She asks to go when she needs to, and just does her thing and gets her little sticker reward.

I can’t help but think …that’s it??  Come on, Caro!  You’ve made everything else a challenge for me!  You’re almost three years old and I still need 17 cups of caffeinated beverage to survive a single day!  You can’t let me get off this easy!  What will I complain about on my blog??  Think of the blog!

Maybe she’s plotting something.  Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and she’ll have fingerpainted her entire room with her own poop.  Maybe I’m going to have to give her a sticker every time she pees until she’s in college.  Maybe she wants something.  That must be it.  Listen, Caro, you can’t have a pony, if that’s what you’re after.  Mommy’s way too poor and this apartment is nowhere near big enough.

Anyway, for now, until she does something diabolical, I’ll take it.  I want to believe that it’s that easy… I just don’t know if I can!

(Any potty training horror stories, please do share in the comments.  Don’t spare me.  I need to know what I might be up against.  Thanks in advance.)