Boy Potty Training – A Dad’s Journey
My first child was a girl. And because of the gender I placed the responsibility of potty training on my wife. I guess it was my way of getting out of it. How was I supposed to describe peeing while sitting versus peeing while standing? My wife however got revenge and designated me as the official bottom wiper.
Now that my little girl is a self sufficient potty user, I have now been tasked to potty train my little two year old boy. I can’t pull the gender card this time. So, I have been faced to figure out how this is going to work.
Here are some areas that I have been told to look into, and I think that they will help you too!
Let Him Watch You
Ok, let me set this straight. I get a little pee shy when other people are around me. Plus this is a private matter. I don’t want anyone watch me as I pee. My wife along with others told me that letting him watch would be a good start. So I decided to try this out by leaving the door crack while I went to use the bathroom. As he played in the next room over I didn’t think he would notice. However, before I got a good stream going he was in there. I guess curiosity got the best of him. He looked at the potty for a good long time and then followed the stream up to the nozzle. He didn’t say anything, but I could tell he was trying to process everything. As I finished up and placed everything back inside my pants, he looked up at me, smiled, and then walked out.
Let Him Sit on His Own Potty
I thought that this would be a great idea. So I pulled out the potty that we used for my little girl. I took off his diaper and sat him on it with a book to read. In a matter of minutes he proudly jumped up saying he had peed. I immediately thought that this was going to be a breeze. I went into the bathroom to find the floor soaked. I couldn’t understand what went wrong. It was then that I realized that there was suppose to be a little shield on the front of the potty. It was not there because the previous user was my little girl. Lesson learned the hard way. Make sure there is some device in place before you allow the nozzle to be activated.
Provide a Target
When my wife said that you need to provide a target for aiming practice, I thought she was crazy. Why does he need a target? My mind went back to the urinals at a local mall that had little mats inside the urinal with a bull’s-eye on it. There were corresponding rings that were labeled with various points. I thought this was ingenious at the time and when my wife mentioned the concept I wondered how she knew anything about it. She then informed me that I should use Fruit Loops® or Cheerios®. I finally understood her concept. By providing floating objects, my little boy will have a target for aiming. Without a target, the floor gets wet again.
Use a Stool
Although it is probably recommended to teach your boy how to use the potty sitting down, there will come a time when he will want to pee standing up. And since I am implementing the “Let Him Watch You” method, I am not going to adjust my peeing style so we will introduce this method too. In order to prepare for this I have found it best to use a stool. Not a step ladder, but just the basic one step stool (we don’t want him to fall in). Without the stool, he pees onto the side of the toilet and the floor gets wet once again. The best method for using a stool is tool teach you little boy to stand on the stool and lean his knees up against the toilet. This will help provide stability as he shoots for those Fruit Loops® and Cheerios®. By the time he is tall enough, he will hopefully have the standing to pee concept down.
Although these methods seem very simple, they will help make your potty training easier. It is important to remember that your little boy will pick up potty training in their own time. It is ok to encourage it, but don’t let your frustration show when he shows no interest. Be patient and before long he will have it down.
Good luck and happy potty training!
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February 25 2010 09:30 pm | Uncategorized