Two Years Later: Potty Training Success!

Well, he did it. Those of you who have been following our family’s 2-year long potty training saga will be happy to hear that Abel has been accident-free for over a month now. The poops are finally going in the toilet, where they belong! And for this I have Transformers to thank.

Seven months before he began preschool, we started encouraging Abel (two and a half at the time) to use his plain old white Baby Bjorn potty chair. Very limited success. Then he and I went shopping for a very cool blue & green frog-shaped potty, which – combined with several pants-less days at home -- got the ball rolling. He started preschool in pull-ups, but after Christmas vacation (age three and a half) he was wearing underwear and staying dry – and using the regular toilet in our bathroom.

But poop was another story. He refused to use the toilet. It didn’t matter what kind of cool undies we bought together, he still was happy to poop in them. Pooping on Nemo! Pooping on Wall-E! Pooping on Spider-Man . . . he didn’t care.

We tried positive reinforcement. We tried talking about his fears. We tried a timer. We tried bribery (M & Ms had worked for peeing). We tried stickers. We tried making a big deal over every minor success. We tried nonchalance. We tried toilet sitting. We tried reading in the bathroom. We practically memorized the book Everyone Poops.

The fact that all of his friends were now pooping in the toilet, the fact that they told Abel it was gross that he went in his pants – none of this had any bearing on him. He just. Didn’t. Wanna. Poop. In. The. Toilet. So much so that he took to hiding under his train table when he had to do #2.

We didn’t really know what to do. You can’t make your 4-and-a-half-year-old go pants-less around the house in October.

Abel didn’t really know what to do either. He knew that going in his pants wasn’t such a great idea, but the alternative was scary to him.

And so he grew constipated. Not enough that he needed meds, but enough that he was only going once or twice a week. “Hey Abel, want another Twisted Fruit? More grapes? More apple juice?”

So, of course, we grew concerned.

One day after school, Abel reported to me that he had pooped in the toilet. He told me this long story about how he realized he had to go, asked his teacher if he could use the bathroom, chatted with the hall monitor, who summoned the principal after Abel had been in the bathroom a while, and she coached him through the closed door on his wiping technique and acknowledged his success. I couldn’t quite believe it, so I surreptitiously called the school for corroboration. It was true. So we knew he could do it – when he wanted to.

Around this time, Abel had become fascinated with Transformers. We’d received Optimus Prime and Bulkhead as hand-me-downs, and he just loved to play with them, working with his dad to figure out how to convert them back and forth from Autobots to vehicles. So one day Chris took him shopping. They came home with Bumblebee (retail value $59.99).

Chris told Abel that Bumblebee was a gift for him “because he had been doing so well on the potty.” (“Doing so well” was having accidents in behind the closed bathroom door instead of the living room, and at least humoring us every so often with a sit on the toilet “to try.”) The deal was: he could play with the Transformers as long as he continued to have success in the bathroom.

It sorta worked. The frequency of his accidents diminished, but he was still pooping in his pants more often than not. We reminded him of the deal we had made. He didn’t want his Transformers to go into Time Out . . . did he? We felt a little uneasy about this arrangement – we were really resorting to this kind of coercion? We were. Sigh . . . But we were seeing signs of improvement . . . and we didn’t know what else to do.

So, employing some kind of bizarre reverse psychology, Chris took Abel shopping again for two more Transformers. It was Seaspray this time (retail value: $24.99) and Starscream ($49.99). He said, "I know you can do this."

Things were looking up. We could tell Abel was trying, and even though he was still averaging less than 50% success, we didn’t put the Transformers away. Until the week when he started refusing to use the toilet again. When asked why, Abel said “I just don’t want to go poop on the potty.” It’s not that it hurt, he said, or that it was smelly or . . . He just. Didn’t. Want. To.

We reminded him of the deal we had made. And then we put the Transformers in Time Out.

Oh yes we did.

And of course we felt horrible about it – of course we did. We second-guessed ourselves. We agonized over the decision. But we held our ground.

Abel cried . . . for approximately 3 minutes . . . and then accepted the consequences and played with his other toys. But he asked about the Transformers hourly, and we reminded him of our deal.

The very next day Abel went poop on the potty. And so he got his Transformers back, with the condition that they would return to Time Out if he had another accident. He lasted a few days, had another accident, lost his Transformers privileges, cried for approximately 1 minute, and then went another 2 days before earning them back with another successful trip to the bathroom.

I think the Transformers went back into Time Out only one more time after that.

It’s been over a month now, with no accidents.

In the meantime, Santa, as well as his Abel’s uncles, brought several new Transformers to the house over the holidays, mostly Decepticons (average retail value: $29.99). I found a DinoBot on clearance at Marshall’s ($10.00) and surprised Abel with it when I picked him up from school, the first week of the new year.

New toys notwithstanding, Abel seems to “own” using the toilet at this point. He wants to do it. He doesn’t want to have any accidents. He doesn’t ask for any sort of reward when he does it – it’s just “what he does” now. It was a long, hard road for him, a major challenge to conquer. We can tell he is proud. And of course we are too.

So yeah, our house is teeming with Transformers now (total cost so far: about $235 plus tax), but Abel has learned to transform many of them on his own, and he continues to play with them day and night. It’s not the worst toy a boy could have. (He didn’t find more wholesome toys attractive enough for this scenario).

And what have I learned? Everyone has an opinion on what will work for potty training. Different things work for different kids. What ended up being the most important factor for us was Abel wanting to be toilet trained. Once he wanted to do it, he was successful. And that’s that.

Now can I please stop talking about poop?