Potty Training

Lockdown seemed like such a great time to look at potty training, and I know for a lot of parents it worked out really well. 

Most people this kind of post would go up when their child has nailed potty training and is having very little or no accidents at all. This is not the case for me. 

I wanted to write a post about the real struggle we have had with Harry because all the posts and videos I've seen have gone on about how easy it is. We have not had that experience. 

Harry started showing signs of being ready for potty training a little bit before his 4th birthday, but with working full time I didn't have the time to dedicate to potty training. I knew I had around 6 days off over Harry's birthday and could dedicate that time. Then lockdown happened and I thought yes! This is the time I've been wanting. We let Harry enjoy his birthday and the day after we said to him 'that's it, you are 4 now, time for the nappies to go'. 

Shockingly, Harry was fine with this. I did lots of research the days leading up to this and knew that for the first day or so Harry was going to need to be naked. We had got all the options, not knowing what Harry would prefer, a traditional potty or toilet seat. Harry chose the potty and this was fine by me. 

We did around 3 days with naked and Harry amazed us. He did so well having very little accidents, we had set timers on our Amazon Echo for 15 minutes, then 20, then half an hour until the third day when we felt that Harry had nailed it. He had started telling us when he needed to go and even did a few poo's on the potty so we got rid of the timers and let him go when he needed. 

On day 4 we felt it was the time to start with some pants. This is where our problems started. Harry chose his own pants (Hey Duggee) and every morning was super excited to pick a pair, then he wouldn't be able to tell us when he needed to go. He would pee in his pants and just carry on playing or whatever he was doing. We decided to go back to being naked and I did more research which said to try just trousers as pants felt too much like nappies. After 2 more days of naked we put Harry in just some loose joggers and had the same issue as with the pants. 

Its been months now and when Harry is naked he is completely perfect, no accidents and really being good at telling us when he needs a wee. He has even started to tell us when he needs a wee or a poo when he has a nappy on, but the moment he has something else on, pants or trousers he is not even acknowledging that he needs to go and its gotten to the point where if we are home he is naked and if we need to leave the house he has a pull up on. 

I honestly feel like a failure with this, Harry started school in September and I was really worried about not potty training him before, however I have spoken to his new teacher and they have no issue with him being in nappies. But I just don't know where to turn with potty training. A friend said to me wait until his speech gets better, but I don't know when this will be.