Sigh.
This is going to be one of those posts where I basically talk about all the stuff I don’t know, so if you came here expecting some wisdom and insight I apologize in advance.
But I just don’t know about potty training.
I mean, I have potty trained one child. And I worked for a while in a daycare toddler room where I helped potty train other peoples’ children.
But when it comes to kid Two, I just don’t know.
For starters, I don’t even know how I feel about it. A part of me would love to have her well on her way to being potty trained by her third birthday in just under two months. Another part of me says, what’s the rush?
There isn’t one. There’s just me feeling like I’m not doing my job as her mom every time I see other kids her age or younger that are out of diapers. But my logical brain knows better. It knows that my job is to pay attention to when SHE is ready, to help her learn in the best way possible for HER, and that means not making it about me and the obscure deadlines I set that don’t have anything to do with her.
And speaking of waiting until she is ready, I don’t know if she is ready. She shows some signs that she is and some signs that she isn’t. She’s doing a great job of sitting on the potty, but often won’t make anything come out on the potty chair. She sings the Daniel Tiger potty song and enjoys going through the steps of flushing and washing, etc. but when it comes to actual readiness to comprehend what it is she is supposed to do, I’m not sure if she totally gets it or if maybe she gets it but isn’t ready to actually do it. I just don’t know.
And I don’t know what the right thing to do is. Do we keep having her sit on the potty chair to get in the habit and hope that eventually she starts “going” on the potty? Or will having her sit on the potty without her ever actually “using” it confuse her? Do we keep talking about potty stuff and be consistent? Or do we drop the issue completely and try again in a month? When it’s time to officially “try” do we go full blown bootcamp or do we take it slow?
I have no idea.
So I throw out the question to my parenting village and see if anyone else has ideas or thoughts that feel right to me in this situation. And I order books and training underwear and potty training dolls that maybe I will use now or maybe I will use later.
And I decide what to do. Even though I don’t always know what the right thing to do is. Because, as my brilliant songwriting friend would say, if you don’t know what to do to make your dreams come true, just do what’s next.
Potty training (and parenting) can feel like a overwhelming mountain to climb, and so often I feel like I have no idea how we are going to get from the bottom to the top. But maybe I don’t always have to know. Maybe, instead of worrying about not having all the answers, I’ll just do what’s next.