Potty training is the best… said no mom ever. Potty training is a battle, one that the parents lose on a daily basis.

Potty training Harry Potter went just like the books said (and yes I read ALL the books in preparation for potty training Harry Potter).

I had planned out potty training for months, I made a sticker chart, had a rewards system in place, and then we sat down and had a conversation with him about how we would start potty training at a certain time, he’s a fairly logical child so this seemed to make sense to him.

The time came, I forgot about it because let’s be honest I had a newborn and we had just moved, but he remembered.

So despite living in a house full of boxes and attempting to navigate life with two littles in a new city we started potty training.

And two weeks later we were done. No pull-ups, no accidents, just done.

After Harry Potter I gave myself a pretty big pat on the back. I thought, “wow I am awesome, that wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought.

Seriously, what is wrong with these other moms, why are they always whining about potty training?”

Clearly these were the naive thoughts of a first time mother and clearly karma was going to knock me down a notch (or 5,000) for my arrogance.

When AsthmaMan was two and a half we decided it was time to potty train him.

He was ready, he understood what to do, he could dress himself, plus he’d been watching his brother (and seriously every other member of our family) use the toilet for the past two years.

I set up the sticker chart, came up with rewards, and notified him we would be starting potty training on a specific day.

I think his exact response was “no”.

AsthmaMan is stubborn.

He cannot be bribed, coerced, or forced to do anything he does not want to do, Harry Potter is less stubborn and can be bribed (he has the entire collection of Planes toys to prove it).

I explained to him that when he peed he would receive a candy, to which he replied, “I don’t need candy”, I explained that if he pooped he could have two candies or another awesome prize, to which he responded “I have toys”.

Yep.

Being a bit hard headed myself I decided we were going to forge ahead with the original plan.

Some context, my kids are all two and a half years apart (the spacing is almost to the day), it’s funny how life works out, so we had a five year old and yes… wait for it… a newborn in addition to AsthmaMan. And it was summer, in Texas so it was about 10,000 degrees always.

Not my best plan.

But I forged ahead.

He refused to participate so I would set him on the toilet, beg him to pee, and get so mad when he wouldn’t comply.

Eventually Mr. Spreadsheets took over, I’ve never seen a grown man cry over pee before, but AsthmaMan brings out the best in people.

Still no success, those little undies were constantly wet and AsthmaMan did not care.

So we gave up, we moved to pull-ups and accepted defeat.

We tried again a few months later, still nothing.

Then around September AsthmaMan decided he was ready to be potty trained.

He put on underwear, used the toilet independently (ok let’s not get crazy I did have to help him with his pants every.single.time).

And that was it, he was done.

Oh wait except for the poop part.

Did you know you can’t make a person poop.

Yeah you can’t, I’ve tried.

I was offering AsthmaMan cash, prizes, pretty much whatever he wanted.

At one point I think I offered to buy him an iPad.

His response was always “no, I have stuff”.

Several people suggested that maybe the problem was that he didn’t know how to poop sitting down so we might need to focus on this first.

The suggestion (from a myriad of places) was to cut a hole in the pull-up and have him sit on the toilet to poop.

This seemed awesome… until it wasn’t.

Sitting wasn’t the issue, knowing when to go wasn’t the issue, the issue was he didn’t want to use the toilet.

For months we did the pull-up with a hole trick, it worked, except then I had a three year old screaming “MOM I NEED A PULL-UP WITH A HOLE TO POOP!”.

No, no you do not!

I can’t even begin to describe these conversations, they were just so stupid!

The hole got so big that he was literally wearing a waistband.

Please tell me how a pull-up waistband helps you poop?

No really, tell me how!

So after a few months of that (maybe 6) he decided it was stupid too and said “Mom I can poop without a pull-up with a hole”.

And that was it.

He had potty trained himself at night, been keeping his underwear dry for months, and then finally mastered this.

I’m about 90% sure that had I done nothing the result would have been the same. He would have potty trained himself when he was ready.

When it’s time to potty train the Princess I’m not even going to attempt to reread the books or reference the articles. We are just going to wing it, and it’s going to be awesome

So potty training is terrible.

It is, the whole process sucks.

It’s like sleep training- there’s not a great way to do it, what works with one kid doesn’t work with another.

You’re not failing if you’re kid isn’t potty trained by 3, 4, or 5, or if they have accidents, or if they are pooping in a pull-up with a hole in it (but don’t start this, it’s a hard habit to break).

You are not failing, don’t let the overly confident moms get you down, their day will come my friend.

Don’t worry if you don’t follow the books or the articles, you are doing a great job. They’ll get it, I promise they will get it some day.

And in the meantime, while they’re not getting it and you’re considering tearing out your hair or moving away just so you don’t have to deal with this idiotic issue any longer, it’s ok.

I’ll be your shoulder to cry on, your sounding board, you can even yell hysterically about it, cause we’ve all been there, we feel your pain.

And don’t be ashamed to cry, we have all cried over our kid pooping.