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Potty training required an ambulance at our house
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Anonymous
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Disclaimer: no child was injured in this potty training adventure.
Our 2 year old son is in the midst of a serious potty training effort. Day 1 in underpants: two minor wetting accidents in the morning, then dry all day. Day 2 in underpants: dry underpants all day, but refusal to poop. Day 3: still refusing to poop on potty, clearly getting pretty uncomfortable, will let loose once his nightime diaper is on, or have an inevitable underpants accident when he simply can no longer contain the poop. Day 4, 5, and 6: see Day 3. In an effort to get past this roadblock, I resorted to an age old parenting technique: bribery. I bought a small ambulance toy (from the Cars Toons series - didn't even know Cars Toons existed, but okay), set it up on the bathroom shelf, and told him he could have the ambulance as soon as his poop went in the potty. This resulted in at least 30 straight minutes of desperate crying because he wanted the ambulance NOW. Followed by approximately 27 trips to the potty in the next two hours, and with every drop of pee forced out, a hopeful utterance of "have ambulance now???" Finally, due to the combination of physical inability to hold it any longer paired with the fact that he happened to be in the bathroom anyway, poop ended up in the potty (much to his surprise - quite the look of shock on that little face - totally unintentional on his part). Hooray, now he can have the ambulance!!! Happy, happy child. The ambulance went back up on the bathroom shelf at bed time with a promise that he can play with the ambulance again tomorrow after he puts poop in the potty. 3 a.m. rolls around and my championship sleeper, who almost always sleeps all night long, pops out of bed, declares he needs to use the potty, asks for the ambulance. Alas, pee only, no poop (thank goodness actually, or he'd have been up all night with that ambulance). The following day, he was all about pooping in the potty. No more of this poop in underpants or diaper business - nobody gets an ambulance out of that - he is reformed! |
Anonymous
| Ha! Very cute! |
Anonymous
| Thanks for sharing. Tears are rolling down my face. |
Anonymous
| OP here. I see the potential for this to turn into an awful new code phrase at our house. We come home from work now and ask our son "did you get to play with your ambulance today?" I hope this will not turn into secret family bathroom code: "okay, kids, anyone need to play with an ambulance before we get in the car?" |
aprilmayjune
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| Sounds like a wonderful success story!!!! Yay for your little one! |
Anonymous
| laughing -- great story. |
Anonymous
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Hilarious!
And congrats to all of you for this success. |
Anonymous
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You know, you posted this at the perfect time for us! We're going to try the same tactic.
We're having the same issue with our 2yo son. Doing great with the pee, but holds his poop until nighttime when there's a diaper on. I'm glad it worked for you! |
Anonymous
| That is funny. We had a prize box (very small prizes) that my son got for his first few "firsts" (first poop in the little potty, first poop in the big potty, first time using a bathroom outside the house). Over a year has gone by and every once in awhile he will ask what special kind of pooping does he need to do to get a prize. |
Anonymous
Awesome. |
Anonymous
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Congrats!
My kid really turned a corner with similar bribary. Unfortunately it got out of hand. DC started trying to wrangle out #2's for a prize when there were no #2's to be had. He got a little obsessed about it. At one point he was working on one with all his might and started to wimper and said he's having troubled getting it out. I took a look and he had pushed about 2 inches of intenstines out of his crapper! We almost rushed him to the emergency room but I decided to call the pedi instead in a brief moment of clarity. He said that it wasn't uncommon at that age because their little muscles don't alway sinc up properly and to stop offering treats for #2!!! Can you believe that?! |
Anonymous
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No, I don't believe it!
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Anonymous
| Hysterical! Thanks for giving me a good laugh. |
Anonymous
Well, it's true I tell you! Everything kind of sucked back in on its own in about 10 minutes. Looked like a baboon's butt!! Truly horrifying! |