Hasn’t been a lot of Magic lately, simply because we tackled the next major boss fight: potty training. My basic parenting paradigm boils down to “pick as few conflicts as possible, but commit to victory in the ones you do fight.” Sure I’d prefer it if Lil’ Chandra wouldn’t whack the table with her wooden spoon, but I’m not going to die on that hill. The corollary to that is that the parents need to know when there is a fight looming and prepare accordingly. The last one was sleep training, over two years ago. I describe it as “a fight” because you’ve reached a stable equilibrium with nighttime feedings and you have to deliberately disrupt it to get them to stop feeding every 2-3 hours and start sleeping through the night.

Well it turns out potty training is a lot like that except this time they are armed with poop. The Benalish Phalanx adopted the Oh Crap methodology by Jamie Glowacki. It’s a pretty interesting read and a pretty hardcore take. Her stance is pretty simple: potty training consists of teaching your offspring to recognize the feeling of having to pee or poop and take action (tell someone, remove the pants, &c &c) accordingly. If you think about it from their point of view, diapers are a pretty sweet deal. They don’t have to do anything and someone else does all the work! So you have to commit to break it. Pick a fight.

So back to the book. She spends the first 25% scaring the crap out of you: tales of kindergartners with atrophied bladder control so they constant wet themselves in school, etc. She then lays out a simple groundwork to do a clean break from diapers in “blocks”: no pants then commando then short outings then you’re done! It reads very easy, though in the author’s defense she spends a lot of time running through the various contingencies.

Here’s the rundown. The first day (or more) is spent in the house with no pants while you watch your child like a hawk. Your goal is to learn the tells that they have to potty (hopping, dancing, slight crouch etc.) then you whisk them to the potty, get them to pee in the target, and celebrate. Once that is complete, you add pants (or a dress) so they practice their own agency: pushing the pants down first &c. Once that is complete, you start working in brief outings. So how did we do?

Captain’s Log

12/13/19

We took Friday off work to start “Block One”, no pants and taking turns watching Chandra like a hawk. You stuff them full of apple juice so they get more reps (might be peeing as often as every 20 minutes). No asking, just firmly stating, “time to sit on the potty” and hope luck strikes. It’s worth noting that you really do have to stare at them unflinchingly. I got distracted once while on duty and there was an immediate accident. Still, by the afternoon we felt in rhythm with no accidents and the Benalish Momma and I actually congratulated ourselves on how well it went and how it could only get worse.

12/14/19

We were correct: it got worse. We put pants back on, which reduced the cuteness by 20% but also reduced paper towel consumption by 80%. The day began in disaster: two immediate accidents while there was a parental “discussion” occurring. Once was coincidence but two caused us to shelve the “conversation” and just seethe quietly until nap-time. We switched from pants to a dress, got some wins, then a truly pissed bed-wetting during the nap. Friends came over bringing delicious take-out, which was welcome. But the distraction of just having people around caused a serious backslide before bed. Here are the notes from the day:

8:20: failure, at the chest, no hopping just peed. Cried, embarrassed.
8:40: failure. Parents arguing, I missed a cue, cried, embarrassed
9:50: failure. Was looking at the lights right by the potty, spinning, and then peed. No crying, a little embarrassed
10:10: success! Wearing a dress, went over and peed, no prompt or warning.
10:20: poop success! Some farting, she sat a few times, then pooped while looking at us

NOTHING

12/15/19

Entering the final day before returning to day care, morale was very low. It felt like almost no progress was made yesterday, worried about daycare, just no fun. then Chandra shined like a glorious, peeing-on-command star! There was one “accident” when I refused her a juice pouch and then had a hot streak.

12/16/19

We dropped Lil Chandra off at daycare with a stack of spare pants and whispered prayers. Upon afternoon we were informed that she pitched a perfect game! The celebration and smugness was tangible.

You get the idea.

Nighttime training

We chose to do the “Full Cortes”: burn the boats, no retreat, the only way out is through. There were to be no diapers in the house: not for naps, not for bedtime, nothing. This is just rolling the dice for naps, but for bedtime wake them every x hours to try and pee them. How often is x?

Good fucking question!

There is no answer to this and the first few days are just guess-and-check. Here’s the log from Night 2:

Bedtime @ 8:10: after two bluffs of claiming wanting to potty then nothing, she peed the third time with me. Wtf.
1:15 am: wet the bed
4:00 am: dry, sat on the potty nothing. Went to bed, then she said “I need potty”, put her back on the potty and she peed while I walked around. Bluffed another, went to bed.
7:15 am: woke up dry. Morning poop downstairs.

This was exhausting and a very unwelcome throwback to infant feeding (waking 2-3 times a night to start). However, I think it was really helpful. There’s no mixed messages of “sometimes diapers, sometimes not”, it hardened my resolve to get it right since there is no going back, and it gave Lil Chandra some extra chances to feel the sensation of having to go to the bathroom. Cons: it was very, very exhausting. However, we are down to a single waking right now, steadily increasing how long she holds it, and there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

tldr

Potty training is hard, there’s no way around it. The author recommends doing it earlier rather than later (20-30 months) as they are less willful and–to repeat–they are the ones armed with feces. I would recommend Oh Crap, but that’s the danger of the sample size of one: all I really know is that it worked for us. Here are some supplementary pieces of advice

• Make a long weekend of it and tag-team it. Staring unblinking at your child is exhausting and trading off 1-hour shifts really helps
• Schedule *nothing* for that weekend. Seriously, NOTHING. No house projects, no visitors, no outings. If friends want to help, have them drop off food and leave. One parent is completely committed to staring at the child and the other is doing the basics keeping the household intact (food prep, cleaning etc.)
• Make sure that all parental figures are on the same page for the plan and the strength of will.
• I do recommend doing the simultaneous nighttime training, but it sucks.
• It is hard to find a “good weekend” to potty train. We’re busy, there’s always something that needs doing, or upcoming travel. I get it. But calendars abhor a vacuum so it’s on you to proactively carve out the space to do it.