What to do when potty training fails

By Jane Han

In a perfect world, this week’s column would be entirely dedicated to me dishing about how I successfully potty trained my twin girls in three days or less. It’d be one of those mega super mom moments.

But in the real world, I’m sitting here contemplating how much detail I need to go into on why my initial attempt at toilet training my 19-month-old daughters has turned out to be an utter failure.

Sigh.

I mean, I didn’t exactly expect my girls to drop their diapers altogether in just three days, but the twins pretty much have shown zero progress over the past two weeks.

Why, oh why?

They seemed to show definite signs of potty training readiness, but after starting the actual process, it’s like they’re going backwards.

Before, both Baby A and B indicated that they pooped or peed by tapping their bottoms. It was their way of telling adults to hurry up and get them out of their dirty diaper.

But after beginning training, they would sit in their diapers for who knows how long before their heavy diapers get noticed.

On the first day of training, I followed the common basic approach of the most popular training methods ― go diaperless. As soon as they woke up in the morning, I took off their diapers and left them bare-bottomed.

I expected two situations ― they’d either miraculously pee on the potty or go on the floor. I was prepared to handle both situations. But they threw me the unexpected _ they refused to go altogether. One hour passed, two hour passed and still nothing. No pee, no poo no nothing.

They had more water and food than usual, so their inactivity was starting to concern me.

I could tell that anxiety was getting to them. Soon, their nap time approached so I couldn’t just keep them ``full’’ and bare-bottomed. And so back into their diapers.

Less than a minute later, both girls got into their potty positions and let everything out. I sat and watched in amazement.

My little babies are totally capable of holding it. Not just for a few minutes, but for hours.

I didn’t know whether to be proud or disturbed. On the bright side, they’re displaying strong self control, but on the dark side, this means potty training is going to be one tough ride for all of us.

Regardless, I pretty much repeated the same routine for the next week. They pretty much repeated the same "self control’’ on their end.

And after the first week, finally a change. Baby B peed on the floor.

I shouted with joy and showered her with compliments. It was almost as if she peed on the potty for the first time.

I know peeing on the floor is nothing to praise about, but still, it was better than seeing nothing.

The next few days, I noticed both girls peeing on the floor repeatedly. After cleaning up after them for the 12th time, no more compliments as my patience started to wear thin.

No matter how many times I tell them to sit on their cute little musical potties, they’d find new clean spots around the house to pee on. It was almost as if they were having fun seeing me chase and clean up after them.

I realized that it was time I needed professional help. I looked up various articles and books on potty training and what to do in times of failure.

It turns out, when your child knowingly refuses to use the potty, it’s time to stop training. Not only just stop, but stop talking about it. Don’t even mention the word ``potty.’’

Why? Experts say toilet training, in essence, can be a power struggle between toddlers and parents. Our little people have finally found the one thing they can control and make parents either go crazy or ecstatic over. They’re having fun exercising this control.

So if you think they’re having too much fun playing this power struggle, the best thing to do is to completely stop taking part in it and show that you no longer have interest.

Theoretically, children will eventually use the potty since they already know what it is used for and stop using it as a means of control.

It all seemed to make sense in logic so I’ve temporarily stopped training the girls two days ago.

Since then, I noticed the girls voluntarily wanting to take down their diapers and sit on the potty for fun. This looks promising.

I don’t know if I’ll bring back any good news two weeks later, but at least now I have a better idea.

No one said potty training would be easy, so I’m just thankful that I haven’t completely lost it ― yet.