The Next Step In Potty Training

Well, the patience has returned to our lives. Mostly due to the fact that we have seriously put the brakes on the furosity of the potty training. We quickly realized that Ezra was neither interested nor bribe-able when it came to spending some time on the toilet, and that we really needed to focus a lot on growing his interest in the event. Point of disclosure: Ezra has never been willing to take a bribe to do something….he will gladly turn down just about any offer that you can think of if he doesn’t want to do the underlying request. This is both positive (strong willed and knows what he wants) and negative (we can’t convince him to do anything he doesn’t want).

This idea of ‘building interest’ in a 2.5 year old is a difficult thing to do to say the least. Sure, you can manufacture excited expectation about all sorts of things for a short period of time; but to create that in something that will be more long term sustainable is proving to be an interesting assignment. We thought we were on to something when all of a sudden Ezra started going to the toilet, moving his steps in front of it, and pretending to pee (while keeping his pants up)…but that lasted a day. We thought that we had something when he would wear underwear and feel uncomfortable when he peed in them…but that lasted for a week (now he’s just good hanging out in wet clothes). We have, however, been able to get him to sit on the potty for pretty long periods of time – which is good.

His conversations about going to the bathroom have increased and his apparent interest is on the uptick. We aren’t anywhere near close to being able to drop the pedal to the floor and go for broke, but we are on the way. It’s like being in a car that has the potential to do 150mph, but it takes 2000 miles of doing 35mph before you are able to achieve that speed.