February 8th, 2012 
Posted in After taking a break from potty training because we were all getting rather frustrated we decided to try again today. That’s mostly because Ellie used the potty on her own yesterday. She’s been back in diapers for a week because she was refusing to have any part of potty training, and I’ve been told by everyone if it doesn’t seem to be working to take a break. As usual it seems she wants to do it when we aren’t talking about the potty.
Yesterday’s events really told me I should be determined to try again. Nap times and bed time have become a massive struggle again. She purposely takes her diaper off and threatens to pee in her bed if we tell her to go to sleep. Yesterday she peed in her bed four times before she finally gave up and settled down for a nap. She is testing me hardcore these days, and I’m doing everything I can to prevent myself from pulling my hair out. Honestly I’m surprised I haven’t developed a sea of grays overnight.
Then, she did something last night that made us both say, okay, that’s enough. We’re going to find a way to win this battle! Ellie climbed onto the kitchen table, and Ben got onto her. She got mad at him and decided to retaliate. I heard her yell “Daddy, I go pee pee in your room” (the living room). His voice got stern, and he said “you better not pee in the living room floor!”. She didn’t. She obliged him by bypassing the floor, climbing into his recliner, and she squeezed out a flood of pee. Yeah, neither of us were too happy about that, and she lost quite a few baby dolls as punishment!
If she can purposely pee on something when she feels like it we have to get serious about this potty training stuff. There is absolutely no reason why she shouldn’t be using the potty! I decided to invest in some scrubs uniforms since I’ll be once again cleaning up floods of pee everyday, I prepared the steam mop for battle, and we set to work this morning. She’s been defiant, pitched hissy fits, and tested my willpower in every way, but she did use the potty twice today.
I cannot stress this enough: you can’t force the potty training. She will let you know when she’s ready. It sounds like she’s rebelling. A friend of mine (the first in our group to have kids) tried to force the potty training issue. He rebelled by purposefully pooping and smearing it on walls and his hands and whatever was around. It was ugly.
With our kids, we let them guide us toward the appropriate time and it worked out pretty uneventfully. One of the boys even went a little long to where we started to worry. But then one day, he wanted to be a big boy and did it. As long as they don’t have to be potty-trained for something (daycare or school), give her some breathing room.
Now this is just my advice and feel free to ignore it.
Parenting’s a tough thing.
No, I agree with you. I don’t think you can force it to happen, and that’s exactly why we backed off and decided to give it a few weeks before trying again. She’s been back in diapers and pullups for a couple weeks now, and we haven’t so much as mentioned the potty.
What’s getting to me is when we stopped pushing the issue is when she decided she was going to turn bedtime into a battle over pee. She rips the diaper off the second I walk out of the room, and she purposely pees on the bed because she knows I’ll have to come back into the room to clean it up.
Then yesterday we tried potty training again, but I didn’t try to force her to sit on the potty. I just placed one in the living room and one in her room, stripped her naked, and let her go. She peed in it twice when she wanted to, and I didn’t even acknowledge it. I just cleaned it up and went on with the day. She was in a very ill and defiant mood, though, so it was a day full of hissy fit throwing that would have been made worse by insisting she potty. When it was bedtime she used the potty and climbed into bed on her own without a diaper and spent most of the night dry.
Yep. Parenting’s a tough job.