(Not) Potty Training a Boy in 21 Easy, Soul-Sucking Steps

Tempest Rose 34 Comments

There are thousands upon millions of Potty Training Steps articles out there for you to consider when deciding to begin Potty Training your boy. However, none are quite as painful as this one. Enjoy.

1. Buy potty when boy is 18 months old, just to get yourself excited for no real reason.

2. Give potty to boy as Christmas present, because what kid doesn’t want his very own shitter to remind him change and growing up too fast is vastly approaching for Christmas?

3. Convince boy to sit on potty while still in Christmas PJs and do an adorable photoshoot.

4. Try to get boy acclimated to potty. Realize he’s still in a crib, so what’s the use? Put potty aside.

5. Randomly bring out potty over the next year. Sometimes boy sits on it, sometimes not.

6. Crack down when boy is two-and-a-half. Keep potty in view at all times. Buy underwear.

7. When boy still has no interest, let him run around naked all the time. Begin by having him pee outside.

8. Get boy so used to peeing outside that he still won’t go near the potty, but asks you to take him outside whenever he has to go. Take him.

9. Finally get him to use the potty by bribing him with candy and presents.

10. Go to the dollar store to stock up on candy and presents.

11. Keep boy naked all the time. Get him pretty used to using the potty for peeing purposes. No poop, yet.

12. Put boy in underwear. Take him to store. Have no accidents.

13. Get super proud of yourself and tell everyone how your boy is almost potty trained.

14. Have it all backfire when one day, out of the blue, boy stops using the potty and pees all over the couch.

15. Think it was a fluke accident and continue putting him in underwear until he pees himself 10 times and you throw your arms up in defeat.

16. Try to get boy to use the potty only to get punched in the face.

17. Give up and have daycare do it.

18. Have daycare inform you even they can’t get the kid to use the freakin’ potty.

19. Decide to write a how-to list so you can laugh at yourself years later when your kid finally gets this whole Potty Training thing at 16.

20. Make a mental note to tell any future love prospects of boy about this list.

21. Search computer and mother’s Facebook for any and all aforementioned photos, acquire exactly zero of those photos.

34 thoughts on “(Not) Potty Training a Boy in 21 Easy, Soul-Sucking Steps”

  3. You know what I did to potty train my son, I kept some cheerios in a Tupperware in the bathroom. I would toss a couple in an make it a target practice game. It was actually pretty easy after that and he learned right quick.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  4. OMG!!! I laughed so hard reading this, but I would rather have my toenails extracted sans novocaine than have to potty train another child. I am SO sorry! With my oldest I waited til he was almost three before I even tried and it was as painless as such *loveliness* can be — he got it pretty quickly and I thought — ooh, I must be pretty awesome at this. Big. Mistake. My youngest was a nightmare. He wanted to be like his older brother and began ripping off his diaper at the most inconvenient places and inopportune times somewhere around 15 months. I was forced to go ahead and try to train him. AWFUL. He wasn’t fully trained until he was 4 and still had frequent accidents. I reached a point where I proclaimed him potty trained even though he was far from it. If anyone asked I’d say, “Why, yes, he’s a master pottier.” I mean, because if it’s not stressful enough, it’s a helluva lot worse when other people point it out to you ALL THE TIME — “He’s STILL not potty-trained?!” You have my sympathy. Hang in there. What finally worked best with Wallace was to completely reset and act like it didn’t matter to me whether he used the potty or not — SO HARD, I know, but that’s what eventually did it. I should have received an honorary Oscar for my award-winning performance. Thankfully, he’s now a well-adjusted 5yo kindergartner, and I can’t tell you the last time he had an accident. Good luck!!!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

      • Ugh — I should have mentioned that. It didn’t happen immediately after I started pretending not to care. Those were some painful weeks/months (sorry to tell you that) but it finally happened, but damn if it didn’t have to be on his terms (no clue where he gets that from. Ha!) He’ll get there and you’ll survive, but I know it’s not fun in the thick of it…

        Liked by 2 people

        Reply

  5. Hang in there, Tempest! I know it’s not easy. I’ve trained a girl and a boy. I think Son was harder to train initially. Of course, with Daughter I lucked out because I had her in an in home daycare with an awesome woman, Miss R, who’s own daughter was the same age and also potty training. Miss R volunteered to train Daughter right along with her own kid. It worked wonderfully because Daughter idolized Miss R and wanted to please her and she also wanted to be like her new friend. I was a SAHM on disability by the time I had Son so he didn’t have daycare to inspire him.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  6. So cute … I used to put my kids in front of the tv kids programs in the morning … on their potty chairs … never put much pressure on them otherwise … and, guess what? they are all potty trained … smiles … Love, cat.

    Like

    Reply

  11. It’s rough on us as parents, but the how and when they choose to “go” is the only thing they truly have control of (once they can actually control it – for some kids it takes a little longer to get there). When it becomes a power struggle, they will win every time, and there is nothing we can do about it (sorry).

    I’ve trained 3, 2 boys and a girl, and they were all different in what worked for each. I was a single mom with my oldest and did a lot of what you described. Bribery with special treats on the back of the toilet with him sitting backwards so he wouldn’t fall in (threw away that damn potty chair without ever actually using it – other than as the easter basket it started out as). I still have some cute photos of those efforts – think highschool yearbook baby pics, a mother’s revenge! I tried everything with him but until he was ready it wasn’t going to happen. We had a bit of a regression when he was in kindergarten (turmoil of new baby), but I’m happy to say it didn’t last long.

    My daughter was forced into pull ups early. She was a rather large little thing and outgrew the diapers…happy to say she was fairly easy and a very normal size today!

    All it took with my youngest was a weekend camping trip when he was ready, he loved “whipping it out” to aim at the rocks whenever he wanted. Unfortunately the hard part with him was convincing him it was not OK to pee on the lawn at home (and he only squatted to poop on the front walk once – we lived on a busy intersection close to 3 schools, I was completely mortified and probably freaked out a bit too much!). He too is well adjusted and appropriate in where he goes!

    Hang in there, this too shall pass!!!

    Like

    Reply

Tell me whatcha think about that!

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s