Oh Crap! - How long were you on Block 1?

[Anonymous]

We’re on Day 3 of Block 1 and DD2 doesn’t seem to be getting the potty thing at all. I can tell when she has to go, but she throws a fit over sitting on the potty and won’t go over either prompted or unprompted.

She does try to pull her shirt down to cover up and will run off away from us to pee on the floor.

Yesterday she threw a fit over pooping in the potty and reached back, grabbed it, and threw it on the floor.

Are we on the right track? I know in the book it says Block 1 is 1-3 days but I feel like we’ll be there longer.

[Anonymous]

Ok here’s the thing about Oh Crap. It has some good ideas but is also incredibly pushy/judgmental, and it undercounts the amount of time that kids, on average, take to get the various stages down. Particularly that first stage. Some kids will get it immediately (I know of maybe one kid who had that first part down in the 1-3 day timeframe) but most will not. I think we were on the first part for at least a week, if not twice that, as were most friends and family. We kind of went back and forth between the first couple stages for a month. We’d take a step forward but then a step back. It’s also one thing to get the potty down at home but entirely different when you do need to return to normal life!

Anyway don’t worry. Kids learn potty training at all different speeds and ages. Don’t put too much stock into one book or method. Again, I think the general ideas in the book make sense but wouldn’t follow them so rigidly or worry if things aren’t going as quickly as the book says they should.

Finally— as an FYI, it’s been awhile but I remember that she also recommended night training almost immediately, which included waking the child a few times a night to use the bathroom. This is NOT a recommended method by most accounts; it may actually prolong night training (and make everyone tired and miserable).

Good luck! It sucks but in 6 months or a year you’ll barely remember it.

[Anonymous]

If she’s two, unless you’re up against an immovable deadline of some kind, I would just back off completely and try again in a few months. I don’t see any reason to fight against resistance with a two year old. Go back to diapers, and talk about how someday soon she’ll be ready to use the potty. Tell her about the party you’re going to have when she’s ready. Read books about it.

I really think it goes better when they’re on board. It’s easy to push through failures and much harder to push through resistance.

[Anonymous]

Use rewards. The modern parenting obsession with never bribing is absurd. What treat food does your kid like? We put a jar of M&Ms next to the potty and let her take one for every success. Trained in 1 day, I’m not kidding. Yes we’ve had accidents every few months or periods of regression (preschool), but it was so easy. We weaned off the treats after one week.

And I did this a year ago not in the 1950s so I’m not some boomer crapping on millennial parenting. I’m a millennial crapping on millennial parenting. We do short term rewards for many needed behavioral modifications and it works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Use rewards. The modern parenting obsession with never bribing is absurd. What treat food does your kid like? We put a jar of M&Ms next to the potty and let her take one for every success. Trained in 1 day, I’m not kidding. Yes we’ve had accidents every few months or periods of regression (preschool), but it was so easy. We weaned off the treats after one week.

And I did this a year ago not in the 1950s so I’m not some boomer crapping on millennial parenting. I’m a millennial crapping on millennial parenting. We do short term rewards for many needed behavioral modifications and it works.

Where did OP say she didn't use rewards such that you could paint a brush about a modern "obsession" with parenting? I loosely used Oh Crap (but agree with the PP that says it is judgemental and ridiculous that this woman is not remotely an expert) and I bribed my kids during potting training.

[Anonymous]

OP, you should back off! Relax about it, and try some rewards-but right now, back off.

Grabbing her own poop out of the potty and throwing it is pretty extreme-how much stress is the child under to potty train? It shouldn't be this stressful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If she’s two, unless you’re up against an immovable deadline of some kind, I would just back off completely and try again in a few months. I don’t see any reason to fight against resistance with a two year old. Go back to diapers, and talk about how someday soon she’ll be ready to use the potty. Tell her about the party you’re going to have when she’s ready. Read books about it.

I really think it goes better when they’re on board. It’s easy to push through failures and much harder to push through resistance.

+1

Go fully back to diapers, try again in 3-4 months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok here’s the thing about Oh Crap. It has some good ideas but is also incredibly pushy/judgmental, and it undercounts the amount of time that kids, on average, take to get the various stages down. Particularly that first stage. Some kids will get it immediately (I know of maybe one kid who had that first part down in the 1-3 day timeframe) but most will not. I think we were on the first part for at least a week, if not twice that, as were most friends and family. We kind of went back and forth between the first couple stages for a month. We’d take a step forward but then a step back. It’s also one thing to get the potty down at home but entirely different when you do need to return to normal life!

Anyway don’t worry. Kids learn potty training at all different speeds and ages. Don’t put too much stock into one book or method. Again, I think the general ideas in the book make sense but wouldn’t follow them so rigidly or worry if things aren’t going as quickly as the book says they should.

Finally— as an FYI, it’s been awhile but I remember that she also recommended night training almost immediately, which included waking the child a few times a night to use the bathroom. This is NOT a recommended method by most accounts; it may actually prolong night training (and make everyone tired and miserable).

Good luck! It sucks but in 6 months or a year you’ll barely remember it.

+1 about the Oh, Crap! book. DS started at 24 mos, he did block 1 really well.


.... what Oh Crap! got wrong was how to handle overnight/sleeping. it was total garbage. you know what my kid did at night? peed out the side of the bed, "bc you told me not to pee in the bed."

so YOU DO YOU OP. Oh Crap! was helpful and gave me the confidence to get started potty training, but it is not an end all be all, one size fits all approach to kids. DS wore pull ups from 2years-4years and then just didnt need them anymore at a certain point.

[Anonymous]

** meant to say DS wore pull ups AT NIGHT between 2yo-4yo, until he was very confident in his ability to hold his pee overnight

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok here’s the thing about Oh Crap. It has some good ideas but is also incredibly pushy/judgmental, and it undercounts the amount of time that kids, on average, take to get the various stages down. Particularly that first stage. Some kids will get it immediately (I know of maybe one kid who had that first part down in the 1-3 day timeframe) but most will not. I think we were on the first part for at least a week, if not twice that, as were most friends and family. We kind of went back and forth between the first couple stages for a month. We’d take a step forward but then a step back. It’s also one thing to get the potty down at home but entirely different when you do need to return to normal life!

Anyway don’t worry. Kids learn potty training at all different speeds and ages. Don’t put too much stock into one book or method. Again, I think the general ideas in the book make sense but wouldn’t follow them so rigidly or worry if things aren’t going as quickly as the book says they should.

Finally— as an FYI, it’s been awhile but I remember that she also recommended night training almost immediately, which included waking the child a few times a night to use the bathroom. This is NOT a recommended method by most accounts; it may actually prolong night training (and make everyone tired and miserable).

Good luck! It sucks but in 6 months or a year you’ll barely remember it.

+1. Oh Crap is definitely unrealistic (their naked strategy didn't work for my kid at all). I also think training works best when you've laid some positive foundation with the potty first, rather than going full on it right away.

So we did some positive potty practice first to get my kid comfortable with the potty then did training pants rather than naked over a long weekend and it worked much better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok here’s the thing about Oh Crap. It has some good ideas but is also incredibly pushy/judgmental, and it undercounts the amount of time that kids, on average, take to get the various stages down. Particularly that first stage. Some kids will get it immediately (I know of maybe one kid who had that first part down in the 1-3 day timeframe) but most will not. I think we were on the first part for at least a week, if not twice that, as were most friends and family. We kind of went back and forth between the first couple stages for a month. We’d take a step forward but then a step back. It’s also one thing to get the potty down at home but entirely different when you do need to return to normal life!

Anyway don’t worry. Kids learn potty training at all different speeds and ages. Don’t put too much stock into one book or method. Again, I think the general ideas in the book make sense but wouldn’t follow them so rigidly or worry if things aren’t going as quickly as the book says they should.

Finally— as an FYI, it’s been awhile but I remember that she also recommended night training almost immediately, which included waking the child a few times a night to use the bathroom. This is NOT a recommended method by most accounts; it may actually prolong night training (and make everyone tired and miserable).

Good luck! It sucks but in 6 months or a year you’ll barely remember it.

+1. Oh Crap is definitely unrealistic (their naked strategy didn't work for my kid at all). I also think training works best when you've laid some positive foundation with the potty first, rather than going full on it right away.

So we did some positive potty practice first to get my kid comfortable with the potty then did training pants rather than naked over a long weekend and it worked much better.

Ah yes both the “being totally naked” thing and the nighttraining were not good fits for my kid. I also didn’t get the naked thing…like, just have them naked on bottom? Or with no underwear? Why completely naked??

Also— we tried at 24 months and it was terrible. Misery all around. No progress. Made going to the potty traumatic. We tried again at 3 and it went SO much better. I think my kid just didn’t get it before. I remember the book being super judgmental about the age of the child— like if you waited until 3 or something the world would end? But it was absolutely fine and it was the right age for us.

[Anonymous]

We use this method for both kids for pee. (We focused on poop a month or two later.) I highly recommend just bribing like crazy. For the first week, we gave skittles for peeing on the toilet. Then we “forgot” or “lost” the skittles and fazed them out.

I think the bigger challenge for us came later when peeing at a certain time (like “we need to pee before we leave for school”) became a control issue and kid would refuse. But who cares, just bribe them with a skittle in those situations. I promise my kids (5 and 3) no longer require treats to pee in the toilet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If she’s two, unless you’re up against an immovable deadline of some kind, I would just back off completely and try again in a few months. I don’t see any reason to fight against resistance with a two year old. Go back to diapers, and talk about how someday soon she’ll be ready to use the potty. Tell her about the party you’re going to have when she’s ready. Read books about it.

I really think it goes better when they’re on board. It’s easy to push through failures and much harder to push through resistance.

+1

Go fully back to diapers, try again in 3-4 months.

+1. Our first attempt at Oh Crap was a disaster, and we should have given up sooner.

3 months later, we basically didn’t even need the “method” because it became so easy.

[Anonymous]

Elimination Communication is the way to go.

[Anonymous]

We did Oh Crap at 22 months. She wasn’t super verbal so maybe took a little longer but we were potty trained in about a month. Block 1 took us like 4-5 days (we did it over a holiday weekend). Block 2 was maybe another 4-5 days, a little easier because she got the concept from Block 1. It took maybe 3 more weeks to get through Blocks 3-5 without accidents more than 95% of the time.

We definitely had lots of pee on the floor lol! I think try your best with positive reinforcement - at that age, they still really thrive off encouragement. She can pick up on your stress/the pressure, so try to keep it upbeat and like a fun game. I think it’s good that she is starting to at least recognizing that she has to pee, even if she doesn’t make it to the toilet yet.

We bought her a few books and would read/sing them when she was on the toilet — she loved Let’s Go to the Potty by Allison Jandu. We never used treats but that would probably work too.

Tbh I think this phase is so much about the parent vs the kid — it is draining and stressful to watch your kid pre everywhere lol so it is hard to keep up the positive mindset. But like when she learned to walk, she will fall sooo many times before she takes her first steps. Be patient and kind (and roll up the rugs!!).

The poop thing is kind of hilarious and will be a great story to tell when she is a teenager. For our little potty, we would just line it with a litttle garbage bag and toss immediately, so she wouldn’t have had the chance. Can you do that?

Tbh, you also need to watch her like a hawk for the first block. The book says no distractions — no movies in the background, no phones, no doing chores — and I think that is right. My husband and I would switch over who would be doing the potty training so we could still get things done, but in order to catch the signals you really can’t be distracted.