Let me just start by saying—I hate potty training. Out of all the parenting stages, it’s hands down my least favorite. I don’t care how many blogs or books I read, it’s always messy, frustrating, and just plain exhausting. But here we are.
So my 3-year-old son is finally in the middle of potty training. And I say “finally” because I put it off as long as I possibly could. When we started, I just took off his diaper one morning and said, “Alright, here we go.” And honestly? The first two days were rough. There was a lot of peeing. Not in the potty. Just everywhere.
But we were sitting on the potty chair a lot. Every time he peed, I’d scoop him up and put him right on the potty chair. Every little while, I’d just have him sit on it even if he didn’t need to go. He didn’t get it right away, but we stuck with it.
By the third day, something clicked. He woke up in the morning, and his diaper was dry, so I plopped him straight onto the potty chair—and he went! I was so happy. It felt like such a big win. From that point on, he really started to get the hang of it. He began telling me when he had to go (even though there were still accidents here and there). But overall, we were making real progress.
Then came the setbacks. Between a couple of trips and him getting sick, we regressed a bit. He stopped caring as much and didn’t seem as into it. But once we got back into our routine, it started to click again. He even got to the point where if he was wearing a pull-up, he’d still tell me he had to go pee—which was amazing.
Eventually though, I realized he was starting to treat the pull-ups like diapers, so I had to ditch them completely and switch him to just wearing underwear. That helped a ton.
Now, let’s talk about poop. This kid refuses to poop on the potty chair. Every time he has to go, he’ll sneak off outside or hide somewhere and do it in his pants. I cannot, for the life of me, get him to poop on the potty consistently. But we’re getting there—slowly. These days, if I catch him in time and put him on the potty, he’ll go. But otherwise, he still tries to sneak off. I don’t know what it is about pooping that’s so hard for kids, but we’re still working through that.
At this point, a few months in, he pees on the potty every single time without fail. He always tells me when he has to pee, and I don’t have to worry about that part at all anymore. It’s just the poop we’re still struggling with. But honestly, compared to where we started, he’s doing so good.
So yeah—if you’re in the thick of potty training and feeling like it’s never going to end, I get it. It’s the worst. But it does slowly get better. And if you have any tips for getting a stubborn little boy to poop on the potty, I am all ears. 😅
— Chandee
Dandychandee 