I-Search

The Ins and Outs of
Potty Training

By Samantha Jackson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table of Contents

 

·       Title Page

·       Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………2

·       Summary……………………………………………………………………………………3

·       Background…………………………………………………………………………………4

·       Why I am writing…………………………………………………………………………5

·       What I already know……………………………………………………………………6

·       The Search…………………………………………………………………………………8

·       What I’ve Learned……………………………………………………………………..10

·         The Future…………………………………………………………………………………12

·         References…………………………………………………………………………………13

 

Summary

            Gabriel is 3 years old and for the past year or so, my parents and I have been trying to toilet train him. It’s been a rocky road and at this point, we fear that there is no end in sight with the diapers. The purpose of this I-search is to discover proven methods and helpful tips that will aide us in potty training.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Background

At some point in our lives, usually between two to four years old, we all learn to control our bladder and bowel functions. I was almost two when I could officially say “I’m a big kid now”.  As I cannot remember those times, I looked to the one person who would know best; my mother. I was a very easy child to teach. M&M’s were my reward for when I did the good deed. Potty training for me began when I saw the other kids at day care using the “big potty” and I figured out how to remove my diaper. I was two and a half year’s old, nearly three. Most of the time, I would wait until we were in a public place, such as the beach, and my mother would have to chase my bare-naked booty across the sand in order to get a new one on.

 One of her favorite stories to tell to my friends is the time that I “had an accident” in the bathtub when I was about three and a half year’s old. She was in my room preparing my night clothes when she heard me start to cry and call for her.  Upon entering the bathroom, she noticed I was frantically trying to climb up the back side of the tub. In the tub was a single floating brown mass. I was terrified of it because it was moving closer. My mother did what any good mother would do and laughed a lot before finally rescuing me. 

She was a single mother, who raised me on her own until I was six. My step-father then entered into the picture and when I was seventeen years old, we were all blessed with the miracle that is my little brother, Gabriel.  So far, he has been meeting each maturation marker within the correct age range. He started eating solid foods at 6 months old, began walking at 11 months old, his first words occurred around a year old.  He will be three in November and we are all taking turns with the potty training.

Why am I writing?

Raising a child is new to me. I do not have children of my own, nor have I ever spent a considerable amount of time around children to say that I had a part in raising them. This is my first experience. It is full of surprises and frustrations, especially potty training. I cannot figure out the proper method or technique that other parents and older siblings use. My parents are about as lost as I am. My father hasn’t potty trained a child in roughly thirty years and for my mother is has been a little over nineteen years. I want to find research that will assist me in this process and make the learning experience run smoothly. My initial questions are as follows:

•          Are boys more difficult than girls to potty train?

•          Is it better to use underwear or pull-ups?

•          What reward systems should I set up for every time he uses the toilet?

•          Are potty chairs better to use or should we adjust him to the actual toilet?

I feel that if I can answer these questions that I will be able to successfully teach my brother how to regularly use the toilet, or a potty chair, instead of diapers. We are already partially on the road to achieving this goal. Gabriel recognizes the need to go and tells us so, yet he still messes in his diapers. Much to my distaste.

 

 

What I already know

•          Are boys more difficult than girls to potty train?

                        Most of my friends and family that have kids past the potty-training age have said that girls are harder to potty train. I have no experience with female toddlers, so I cannot confirm if this is true. However, I do know that teaching a little boy to pee standing up is a lot harder when you are in fact not equipped with the same tools.

•          Is it better to use underwear or pull-ups?

                        Pull-ups are absorbent like a diaper, but they slide on like underwear. The downfall with pull-ups is that the child will still feel like they are wearing a diaper and won’t always pull them down to sit on the toilet. On the other hand, if I was to use strictly underwear, I’d have to be washing them constantly and keep the mop on hand at all times. I have already tried this method several times and Gabriel seems to forget or ignore that he has to pull them down to go potty. When I leave him naked from the waist down, he does fantastic because there is nothing there so he knows he must sit down. In that aspect, I have succeeded but this new process will be the most difficult hurdle to overcome.

•          What reward systems should I set up for every time he uses the toilet?

                        I can’t use Cheerios as we use those for “target practice” in the toilet. I don’t think it would go over well if I then provided him with the same thing he just peed on.  I have tried cookies but then he got used to just sitting on his chair and pretending to go and expecting a cookie. High fives and praise works well but “the experts” and “veterans” say that a physical reward, mostly edible, is the best to use.

•          Are potty chairs better to use or should we adjust him to the actual toilet?

                        I do not know much about this. We have a potty chair and we have a toilet seat adjusted to fit his small tush. He prefers the potty chair since we keep it in the living room for quick access. The toilet seat we save for upstairs, when he is playing in his room or in the tub. He does not like being helped climbing on the toilet, most often than not so most accidents occur when he is attempting to get onto the toilet to relieve himself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Search

 The Internet has a plethora of sources for this. The problem is finding sources that are credible and have useful information. I know I could theoretically use anything but I wanted to use something that had sources and didn't look like it had been written by someone who had never ever been around a child.

The first article online that I found seemed credible enough but the information was very vague and didn't exactly answer my question. I kept the link just in case I could use it later on but as of right now, it isn't something I find important. The next two articles were of no help at all as they only talked about potty training girls. If Gabriel had been Gabrielle, that would be nice information but the parts are a bit different.

My next plan of action was to use Marvel to pull up journal articles that had some heavy credentials behind them. The first article I found, “Potty Stalling” by Charlotte Latvala, was short but gave three very precise tips. My hopes rose a bit that I’d discover something helpful yet. I came up with five more articles and out of them, only one was incredibly useless. In fact, I was surprised Marvel would even have it in their databases as something worthy of being put into a research paper. My favorite article out of the six that I found on Marvel would have to be Anne Krueger’s “3 Easy Stages”. I was impressed with the information she provided and she gave straight-forward answers.

            My neighbor has a son that is a year younger than Gabriel and he also picked up an interest in potty training. I asked her a bit about what she did but she couldn't give me concrete answers because he would only go on the toilet at the baby-sitter's house. Even interviewing my mom gave little help as apparently I potty trained myself at the baby sitter's also.

The biggest piece of information came from Gabe's new doctor. This wasn’t so surprising but it contradicted some of what the articles said. However, since this was the most recent information I thought that it could be the most useful.

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What I’ve Learned

As soon as Gabriel turned two, my parents jumped on the “No Diapers” bandwagon. They were eager to save the twenty dollars a week it cost to buy pull-ups and to stop having to carry around a luggage bag full of wipes and diapers and powder. However, he just wouldn’t cooperate. He was almost afraid of the toilet. Whenever we brought up using the potty or switching to big boy pants, he threw a fit and wouldn’t come near us. We let it go until a little before his third birthday, when he began telling us that he needed to use the potty.

It was an exciting moment and I jumped on the bandwagon with my parents. We had learned that you couldn’t push a child to make the transition; they had to make the decision themselves. (Tislner) I wish we had known this when we first began trying to potty-train him. I had no idea that it could cause major set-backs if we pushed too much over the issue. (Krueger)

The first step we tried was using cloth diapers. They were thicker than underpants but still felt like cloth so he could get used to the feeling. We waited until a day when we were all home so that we could take turns. When he woke up in the morning, we stripped him down and we made a big deal over the new cloth diapers. Gabriel was excited and jumped around but not even a half an hour later, he had peed in them. They were not as absorbent as we thought. Luckily, we have a wood floor so we only had to mop up the trail he left.

My mother was not to be deterred. She put a smile on her face and got a fresh cloth diaper and we started all over. This time however, we tried putting him on the potty first before getting him back in clothes. (Tislner) He refused to go and instead just sat there staring at us. When we got him back into the cloth diaper, he decided he was going to poop. It was absolutely disgusting and I was entirely turned off of the whole process. It only took a few more similar incidents like this to get him back into regular diapers.

We also tried letting him run around the house entire nude to increase his awareness of the urge to go. (Haas) It seemed to work and he’d run to his potty to sit and pee without any prompting what so ever. However, if he had to poop, he would hold it and fuss until we put a pull-up back on him. For some reason, the idea of letting it all out on the potty was a terrifying thought. We tried talking to him about it and show that we went on the potty without being afraid but nothing worked. (Latvala)

My parents were flustered and didn’t know what to do. We decided to take a break and give up just in case we stressed him out also. (Latvala) My neighbor was having similar troubles with her son, who was about 10 months younger than Gabe. When he was home and they tried to potty train him, he would decide to use the floor or the laundry basket instead of the toilet. While this information was interesting and could potentially be looked into for answers, it didn't relate to my brother. Gabriel doesn't go to a baby sitter nor is he trying to relieve himself on anything but the toilet or in his pull-ups.

Gabriel’s doctor gave us the final piece of advice and effectively put a stop to our efforts. She told us that typically boys do not start potty training until 3 1/2 year’s old. Gabe did just turn 3 and it's great that he shows an interest but he may just not be ready. She told us that we should stop with the potty training and let him take the reins. If he says he wants to use the toilet, then we can let him but we shouldn't be placing him on it every half hour or continuously asking him if he has to go. It could turn him off of wanting to transition and put a setback in his development.

The Future

In the end, we were not able to potty train Gabriel successfully. He is just not ready even though he shows some signs for wanting to graduate to underwear. He still occasionally tells us when he needs to pee and he has even started using the potty for bowel movements but he prefers his pull-ups over everything.

Krueger said “The two of you can work through the following steps in months, weeks, or days--you're on your child's timetable. If she balks at any of these steps, back up to the previous one and take it easy for a while. Don't be surprised if she even asks to go back to her diapers. If she does, let her. Take this as a sign that your child knows herself, rather than a sign that you or she has failed. Continue to talk casually about using the potty and wait until she indicates that she's ready to try again.”

            I believe that she is right on the money about this. No matter how much we desire Gabriel to be done with pull-ups, the choice is his ultimately and we can do nothing but make him feel comfortable and wait until he is absolutely ready. Even if he takes until he is four years old like Julie Tilsner’s daughter, which I suspect will happen, at least he isn’t too far off of the milestone chart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Brown, Stephanie. "What Should My Child Wear for Potty Training?" About.com Toddlers and Twos. About.com, 2012. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. <http://babyparenting.about.com/cs/pottytraining/f/underwear.htm>.

Some of the information in this article I already knew but I liked that it gave both pros and cons of each type.

Carter, Molly. "Potty Training Tips: How to Help Your Child Feel Comfortable with the Potty." Potty Training. Kidica, 2012. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. <http://www.kidica.com/raising-children/parenting-tips/toilet-training.aspx>.

This site didn't really help me at all. I am only including it because I looked at it and read the information. The comments from people were more interesting and of use.

"How to Potty Train Boys." Potty Training Tips and Products. Potty Training Concepts, 2003. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. <http://www.pottytrainingconcepts.com/A-How-to-Potty-Training-Boys.html>.

This website was not very useful. I already knew that potty training standing up could be more confusing for boys. We are teaching Gabe to sit down before teaching him to aim.

Latvala, Charlotte. "Potty Stalling." Parenting 17.1 (2003): 153. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 10 Dec. 2012.

This was a very short article. I was surprised when I opened it and found out that it was only about a page or so long. However it gave three very helpful tips and I am quite pleased that it didn’t beat around the bush and got right to the point.

Tilsner, Julie. "Potty Success!." Parenting 16.7 (2002): 146. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 10 Dec. 2012.

I greatly enjoyed this article. It reassured me that Gabriel won’t be in diapers forever. While Gabe doesn’t have the same stubborn streak as Julie’s daughter, there are still similarities.

Haas, Derek. "Get This Potty Started." Men's Health (10544836) 23.7 (2008): 96-99. Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition. Web. 10 Dec. 2012.

While this was an article intended for fathers, I still greatly enjoyed reading it. A part of me was hesitant when he mentioned he bought his son a doll but if it works, why the hell not?

Krueger, Anne. "3 Easy Stages." Parenting 15.3 (2001): 114. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 10 Dec. 2012.

Stage 3 provided some great insight for me. I felt reassured that even though Gabe is now 3, he isn’t falling behind on the milestone markers.

Hunt, Katrina B. "REDBOOK Readers Reveal: Potty-Training Secrets." Redbook 206.2 (2006): 144. MAS Ultra - School Edition. Web. 10 Dec. 2012.

This was pretty much useless. I was expecting a nice article about successful ways to potty-train and all I got were three quotes from parents. There were no “secrets”. I am including it simply because I read it.

Rosemond, John. "Living with Children: A no-Nonsense Approach Will Solve Family's Potty Problem." Capital: 0. Jan 17 2008. ProQuest Newsstand. Web. 10 Dec. 2012 .

This was incredibly interesting for me. Gabriel is having trouble with everything mentioned in this article. While the method seems a bit harsh, it worked. I don’t know if I could simply lock Gabe in the bathroom as he loves to get into things while in there.