It’s now over a week since we started potty training Little Miss, and we have had to stop.

By Friday night, after starting on Sunday, I had had enough – she just didn’t seem to be getting the idea that she was supposed to be weeing on the potty, and was just holding on to it until she was distracted enough to let it go (usually in front of CBeebies…)  On Saturday I had a day off, at BlogCamp in Manchester.  It was such a relief to have a break from it all, but in my absence The Daddy carried on with the potty.  Well he didn’t have a great day of it but he convinced me she was really, really close.  He went off fishing on Sunday and left me to it, so I continued plodding along.  I had a bit of help from my dad during the day but it didn’t seem to me she was any further on than she had been on Friday.  She was quite happy to sit on the potty when she didn’t need to go, but when she did need to go she would keep standing up, as if she didn’t want to actually go through with it!!

On Monday we seemed to make a bit of progress; she actually went on the potty twice without having the TV on!  But Tuesday was twins group day and we really needed to get out of the house.  And she wouldn’t go at all when we were there, despite many trips to the toilet.  She was desperate to go, she was almost hopping.  I was convinced she would do it in the car on the way home, but she didn’t.  I put the TV on to try to distract her, but she still wouldn’t go!  By now it was 12.30 and she hadn’t done a wee ALL MORNING.  In desperation I offered her a nappy, and she finally went.

And that was it.  I couldn’t do it any more.  All she had learnt in nine days was how to hold on to her wee.  She hadn’t learnt how to go in the potty or the toilet and really, the only reason she was getting anything in the potty at all was because we were getting better at catching it!  That isn’t potty training in my eyes.  Of course now we’re having to actively encourage her to go in her pull-up – we need to teach her  to be able to let go now, before she stands any chance of getting the hang of it.

So we’re now going to try taking the relaxed approach, and probably do all the things the books tell you not to.  We’re going to put her in pull-ups during the day so she can sit on the potty if she wants to, and if she does something, that’s fine.  She knows when she needs to go and she knows when she’s going, and at some point she’ll probably make the connection with the potty.  But we’re going to let her decide when that should happen.  Once she starts using the potty on a regular basis, we’ll think about putting her in pants again.  I really think they should be able to make the transition to actually using the potty in about three to five days – any longer than that and they’re probably not ready, no matter how many of the other ‘readiness’ boxes they might tick (and believe me, Little Miss ticks all of them).

Maybe they’ll be out of nappies by the time they’re twelve.  Possibly.