Generations of Toilet Training

Before I became a parent, I had grandiose plans to have my child toilet trained by two, reading at three, and filing my taxes on his fourth birthday.

Perhaps it's the relaxed attitude of my generation, but we're into year three already and I'm still lining up for Pull Ups at the grocery store. Noah knows every word of "Once Upon a Potty", yet he's not reading, he's merely reciting the words from memory. And my taxes?? I can't even file them, so there's no hope for Noah completing this year's return.

(Noah, if you read this post years later, I'm sorry for "outing" you as a mostly trained 3 year old. But remember, I did NOT include pictures of you sitting on the toilet... whereas your grandmother has framed pictures of ME snacking on a purple popsicle while chilling on the commode when I was your age...)

I digress.

Back to YOUR toilet training. A generation ago, if your child was 2 and not trained, there was something wrong with both parent and child. One generation further back, my grandmother gained fame and posterity for "training" her children at 6 months. I suspect she may have spent a lot of time hanging her babies over the toilet, but she swears they were "cured of diapers" well before their first birthday.

Today, it's anyone's guess. We know more about the human body and how little bladders really ARE little and we shouldn't rush or shame our kids into producing ONLY on the toilet.

Even the way we train has changed a lot. This weekend we bought a whole stack of "big boy underwear". Some had cars and trucks on them, others had monsters or blue stripes. We bought a package of mini marshmallows to reward him every time he peed on the toilet.

After we got home, we called one of Noah's grandmothers to share the excitement. After the phone call, Noah proudly annouced, "I can't pee on my monsters or they will bite my bum!"

I was momentarily stunned, but Noah was delighted. The idea of inciting a biting frenzy on his bum filled him with giggles - not fear... although the giggles didn't work and he ended up peeing on the monsters before the end of the weekend.

We're getting there, though - slow and steady. And I'm happy to annouce I'm paying less attention to the calendar and MORE attention to my son's cues.

A co-worker gave me the best advice, and I'm taking this to heart "How many adults do YOU know who aren't toilet trained?" It's true - he'll get there when he's ready. And we can giggle about monsters until that day.