Fathering from the Hip's Tips for Kick Starting Potty Training

That long awaited and much dreamed of day finally came last week: my son decided to try using the potty.

“Don't get your hopes up!” my wife told me, our underwear-clad tot in her arms.

But how could I not?

For months now, our boy exhibited signs of being ready. He tells us when he has to move his bowels – “hide pooping,” he says. He squats in an out-of-the-way place just within eyesight, often inside one of our kitchen cabinets, and does his business with much huffing and grunting.

He also, , hates diaper changes. He puts it off, claiming that he's still pooping when the ripening odor billowing from his nether regions suggests he's been long done. Once laid out on the bed for clean up, he kicks and writhes around, babbling about wiping his own butt with toilet paper and how mommy and daddy use the potty.

“That's right,” I tell him. “Mommy and Daddy use the potty. Do you want to try using the potty too?”

Until last Sunday, he has always said no.

I wish I could impart a tale of heroic parental proportions, How We Trained Our Contrary Toddler to Use the Potty! But no, the credit of course, belongs to him. He loves being a “big boy” – helping with the chores, feeding himself, or having all the same food on his plate that we do (even when he doesn't actually want to eat all, or any, of it). He's independent and observant. He loves to mimic.

That said, we did encourage his potty curiosity in several ways. Here's some tips for what to do with your own tot.

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Show Them the Potty!

Last fall, I heard how back in the days of cloth diapers (real cloth diapers, ), kids learned to use the potty around the age of two.

Sounds about right to me, I thought. Even at that point, when the baby laid calmly while I wiped, I had little patience for changing diapers.

Further research introduced me to the concept of elimination communication by which your kid, even before learning language, indicates when it's time to go. When I found this would involve our son running around diaperless for several days while I observed his pre-pee and pooping body language, I said, “no thanks.” Even the fullest of diapers seemed less foul.

Instead, I purchased a potty and thought that by daily cajoling, pleading, and modeling I'd have the kid using it in no time. Oh, the best laid plans! My wife told me the sight of daddy crouched over the potty might frighten rather than inspire the poor boy, and my efforts at convincing him to try it proved fruitless, aside from a pee or two.

The potty went under our bathroom sink, where we used it to house bath toys. Still, the thing was around, and when we talked about the potty, we trotted it out to show him and let him know it was available at any time.

Seriously, I'd say. Wake me up in the middle of the night if you want to use this thing. Just please get out of those diapers!

Provide Examples

In the depths of winter, when our energetic little tot needed distracting and the three-feet high snow banks made getting around with a stroller difficult, I turned to Daddy's Little Helper – Elmo – to help pass the morning.

The Elmo Potty video in particular resonated, and my son watched it over and over. The songs – Accidents Happen, about not making it to the potty in time, and Trying, where the tiniest of kittens scales a towering flight of stairs – made it into the family lingo. The tot now sings the choruses to these tunes on his own.

The video also imparted the importance of washing hands and flushing the toilet, lessons I reinforced when he stood next to the toilet watching me pee. I put him in charge of flushing, and taught him, with a bit of frantic yelling, I must admit, not to stick his hand in the stream or unroll lengths of toilet paper onto the floor.

In addition to his furry red friend, Mo Willems' book, Time to Pee and The Potty Book for Boys, have become pre-nap favorites. For the past few months, he's had a steady stream (if you pardon the imagery) of potty examples.

Discussion and Encouragement (with a Side of Intimidation)

Like many little kids, my son is especially aware of his station. He wants to try coffee and wine and use knifes, but knows he can't until he's at least five years old.

, we took away his pacifier, which we called a binky. In a manipulative little power play, he had started throwing it from the bed on purpose, knowing that we would come and retrieve it for him. Seeing as we wanted to wean him of the thing anyway and that we had nothing to lose since he was sleeping so awfully already, we went cold turkey.

“Binkies are for babies, not big boys,” we told him. “And from your behavior we can tell that you're a big, somewhat Machiavellian, boy now.”

This dichotomy came in handy when we moved him from crib to a bed, and so I began using it when discussing diapers as well. “Diapers are for babies,” I'd tell him before putting on his new diaper. “Big boys use the potty. You're not a baby, are you?”

Ok, so it's a bit of a loaded statement, a peer pressure tactic. But it worked.

Make it Real

“Hurray for underpants!” Elmo cries in the potty video, a call our son began to imitate as I slid on my own.

On my a recent visit to my parents' house, my mom gave me a pack of Thomas the Tank underwear for him. Last week, I pulled them out for him to see. His eyes lit up as he saw Thomas's blue engine chugging across the backside.

“You can wear these if you use the potty,” my wife and I told him.

But he only want to fondle and organize them, stuffing them back in their little bag. “So much for that,” I said.

The next day, while my wife changed his diaper, he surprised her. “Wear underpants,” he said.

They were supposed to go the Brooklyn Children's Museum. She told him that if he put on his underpants, he'd have to stay home and also use the potty.

He assured her that was okay.

Of course, he had so many accidents that day that we eventually let him run around naked, but by the end of the night he decided to “hide poop” in the bathroom, on the potty. After that, we figured we'd go with it. The next day we remained at home, and continued to practice.

He's still working on letting me know when it's time to pee, and accidents certainly do happen when he's distracted in play. But even after a weekend away at Grandma's, when train and car travel meant going back to diapers, he's doing fairly well, getting through this morning with only one pair of wet drawers.

When family members hear about this development, they say things like, “He grows up so fast. You're going to miss some of those baby things when they're gone.”

In this case, I don't think so.