Why we didn’t “potty train”
As I was learning about sleep science in my sleep certification, the first thing that really hit home for me was the fact that sleep is a biological function. This was a huge AHA! Like, of course we can’t “teach” sleep. Someone can’t say to me go to sleep right now, and I will just drop off to sleep. So why do we expect this from our young babies, whose circadian rhythms are still being established and who need proximity and food every 2-3 hours in order to survive. And why do we expect this from our toddlers, who are entering a highly emotional world (fears, tantrums, etc.) and going through ALL KINDS of big changes developmentally that require our loving support.
So it got me thinking, eating is also a biological function (although we don’t treat it as such and therefore end up with all kinds of issues around food), and so is eliminating. Someone can’t say to me go potty right now and actually make me go potty. Someone CAN tell me you better eat that right now, but you know how that goes.
Sleep, eating and eliminating are all biological functions. Our bodies know exactly what to do around these very intuitive behaviors. We are the only ones living inside our bodies, and this is true for our little ones too. I honestly can’t say when my son has had enough sleep, or food, or when it’s time to go potty, because I can’t be inside his body!
Of course, there are all kinds of things we CAN ‘teach’ around eating and eliminating, such as modeling manners and how to wash our hands and such, but the actual act of these very biological processes, is just completely natural, and requires trust. Trust in our children’s bodies, trust in their own awareness of their signals, trust that they will sleep, eat, potty when they feel they need to.
So we took a similar approach with toilet learning as we did with sleep, which was honestly, the EASIEST version of all the approaches in my opinion, because we didn’t have to stress about being a teacher, or doing it in three days. We simply needed to set up the environment for success, tune into our little one’s cues and inner wisdom, and watch the process unfold (in complete awe I must say!)
Here are some small things we did:
We started doing standing diaper changes when this felt appropriate.
We noticed he started hiding to poop.
At this point we got the potty seat out and placed it in the bathroom and just left it there for exploration (no big attention to it).
Our son started getting really interested in dressing/undressing himself around this same time and would just end up sitting on the potty for fun.
As his interest in the potty grew, I bought some absorbent ‘training’ underwear, just because he was starting to want to put our undies on.
On days I knew he had pooped or for short periods, I would ask him, do you want to wear a diaper or undies? He would usually choose undies.
Then he would pee in them!
I would say “You’re wet” or “You peed” “Let me help you get into some dry clothes.”
Never shaming him or even calling it an ‘accident’.
We kept it very positive and fun!
I would say things like, ‘bodies are so cool!’
He was learning about his own body without much input from us.
For a time, he would wear undies all the time and then ask for a diaper when he needed to poop.
This was a phase for him, and eventually he didn’t like how the poop in the diaper felt, and would ask to be changed right after he pooped.
Then he just started pooping in the potty, and the rest is history!
We still say things like:
“You listened to your body!” “How cool!” “Your body told you what to do!”
The coolest thing has been watching our son's confidence in his own self-care abilities. He is truly proud of HIMSELF (and not trying to make US proud). It’s his own journey, and we are there cheering him on.
So, I hope this is helpful in some way! I wanted it to take the stress off of you around yet another stressful thing we feel we have to “train” our children “to do”, not add stress, so please let me know if you have questions or comments.
There is no one right way to do these things, and for us, the toilet learning process was really an art and a practice of trust and surrender. At times I had to keep myself in check on my own expectations. I was worried that if I let him ask for a diaper to poop in, it would become a ‘habit’ as we hear, but I decided to trust him and his process, and in the end, it was one of the coolest things I've witnessed so far as a parent.