Potty Training, check!

Just a note to celebrate that we are officially through with potty training--have been for a few weeks now. It was my second least favorite thing about raising triplets (of course nothing tops the absolute exhaustion and total lack of more than 2-3 hours of sleep at a time for the first 10 1/2 months of their lives).

Potty training started last March (kids were close to 3) with me looking at the situation with optimism and hope. I bought scads of underwear, candy, and stickers. We sang the "Huggies" potty dance and watched the uplifting videos of little kids moving into Pull Ups with joy. We bought two "insert" toilet seats for two of our bathrooms. We put underwear on everyone in the morning at 8 a.m., and I hoped for the best. By 10 a.m., it was clear that "the best" was not going to happen. Unbeknownst to me, little kids don't go all their potty in one fell swoop--before learning to potty train, they can go tiny amounts many, many times during the day. We had 7 accidents after two hours of potty training (two that I was unable to locate until the next morning). I kept putting each child on the toilet and read them books, sang to them, etc., but while we waited for their success, the other two who weren't on the toilet had accidents. When I'd "swap" children the one who had just been on the toilet would immediately have an accident. It was dreadful and completely ineffective. I gave up on one child by the end of the day and put him back in diapers. I tried with the other two for another 24 hours and then I gave up. We'd had probably 25 accidents in two days. Time for Plan B.

Plan B was a gradual, one-at-a-time summer plan. I would give each child one month of the summer to potty train. Ellie was the first--she got the month of June. She did very well--by the end of one week of potty training, she had it down. For night, day, and everything in between, she got it. Yes, there were several accidents the first few days, but overall, it was a smooth process. She loved the potty dance and made up another dance for going the other thing. It was cute and relatively easy :-)

William got the month of July, and he also did very well. The first two days left him puzzled and frustrated (and wet). But by Day 3, he got it. I don't know if he's had even one potty accident since that third day in July. Doing the other thing in the toilet was a bit scary for him. So he waited until he had his nighttime diaper on (we waited to tackle night training with him). That lasted until the end of October when we finally told him we were done with nighttime diapers. And since then, he's had almost no accidents, day or night.

Joshua got the month of August. And I feel pretty guilty about his month, because by August I was very, very tired of potty training. I was tired of the numerous accidents to clean up during Week One of the training. I was sick of the Potty Dance. I was tired of sitting on the bathroom floor by each child and reading books, telling stories, and sounding enthusiastic in general. And I had eaten too many of the potty treats myself (I myself had NO accidents all summer, so I thought I also deserved some rewards!). So, my enthusiasm for month three was low. And after two days of halfheartedly trying potty training with Joshua, I offered to him that we could wait a couple of months and try again then. Joshua had initially wanted to try, but when it became clear to him that he was going to have accidents while he was learning, he immediately wanted to give up. He's my little perfectionist--if he doesn't know how to immediately do it perfectly, he doesn't want to do it. So Joshua happily agreed to "wait" and try again later.

While we "waited," though, Joshua grew fearful of the idea of the toilet. Any time we brought it up again, he began to cry and got very agitated. So we waited and waited and waited. We tried for a day in October, but he was full of tears. The sadness and worry continued into November, until finally, we decided to set an ultimatum. We would be giving his cousins, Ali and Keira, his remaining diapers at Christmas. They needed the diapers, and 3-year-olds don't. He agreed that would be okay.

We gave away the diapers at Christmas, and we put Joshua in underwear. For at least three weeks, we had many, many accidents (especially during naps). There was even the one day where he knew I'd be irritated by another accident, so he changed himself and neatly folded and put away his soaking wet clothes in the hopes I wouldn't know what happened (it was quite a surprise to discover what was in his dresser!). But finally, towards the end of January, he got it. He's still not trained at night (we won't worry about that as we've read that sometimes won't happen 'til age 5), but he's doing very well during the day.

Phew. We're tired of potty training. It was...an ordeal. And each child needed a slightly different approach and reward system. I laughed at all the advice I got during the ordeal. It was all well-intentioned, kind, and it was interesting to hear the different approaches people had, but in reality, I had come to realize, it wasn't about what I was doing to facilitate the training...it was about whether the kids were ready and willing to learn and to do it.

We'll see what the next "great challenge" is while parenting triplets...glad this one is (mostly) over!