The Potty Dance

Well, it's been an interesting week around here. A week full of ups and downs and another lesson about how different two kids with the same genetic material can be!

We've spent the week attempting potty training with Claire. As easy as Elsa was to train, Claire has been just that difficult. Yes, Claire is pretty young. But Elsa was only six weeks older than Claire is now when I trained her, and she was done in less than three days. And Claire has been showing many of the same signs of readiness that Elsa did: She was staying dry for long periods of time, she often told me when she had a poopy diaper, and she sometimes asked to sit on the potty. Also, this was a rare week of "down time" in our schedule—Elsa is done with school for the year, but her summer activities haven't kicked in yet. So it seemed like perfect timing.

So we started on Saturday morning when Claire got up. And she had a surprisingly good first day. There were several accidents, of course, but lots of successes too. In fact, I thought her first day was much better even than Elsa's first day—knock on wood.

But I guess I should've knocked harder. Sunday was terrible, and Monday was even worse. Starting Sunday, she developed what seemed to be a fear of releasing, even when she was on the potty. So she was holding it just fine, and she always told us when she had to go. But then we would sit her down on the potty, and she would dribble out the tiniest amount of pee. That tiny amount would completely freak her out, and she would scream and cry and stop in midstream. Then she'd get off the potty and often have an accident just a few minutes later, since she obviously still had to go. She was also holding her poop, so I was worried about constipation. We tried everything we could think of to distract her while on the potty—running the water, reading books, playing with toys. She even watched almost an entire episode of Sesame Street on her little potty. None of it worked.

Tuesday was especially bad—she had been awake until 10:30 p.m. the night before (mostly because she kept either having accidents in bed or she was asking to go potty). So by Tuesday, I think she was ridiculously over-tired, and that led to even more accidents. That afternoon, I decided it was time to reel it in, and I put her back in diapers. I explained to her that we were stopping potty training and she didn't have to worry about it for now. But wouldn't you know it: Even with diapers on, she continued to tell me that she had to go potty, and she continued to hold her poop. So I was completely confused and had no idea what to do at that point! Eventually I decided that if she's going to keep telling me and keep refusing to poop, we might as well keep trying. At least this meant she wasn't purposely resisting potty-training, which was one of the possibilities I was worried about. And I didn't want to waste the days of work we'd already put in if it wasn't necessary. So back into underwear we went. What fun.

But things haven't really improved since then. She almost always tells me when she has to go, but she almost never follows through once we get onto the potty. I just don't know what to make of it. I have done a TON of research online in the last two days. I found only one real strategy for overcoming this: Put the potty in the bathtub and run warm water on their feet. So we tried that this afternoon—and it worked like a charm.

She peed instantly, more than she ever has in one sitting. We kept up with that all afternoon, and it seemed to be working perfectly, until right before bed, when she had two pee accidents and a poop accident. In all three cases, that was right after we sat on the potty. And it's not like peeing in the bathtub with the water running is really a long-term solution to our problem anyway. I'd already begun having scary visions of a 5-year-old Claire who can never leave the house because that's the only situation in which she can urinate. : )

So. Tomorrow is Day 7. It's been quite a roller-coaster ride. At this point I'm back to thinking she's just not ready and it's time to pack it in again, and this time we'll stick with diapers for at least a couple of months, even if she does continue to tell me she has to go. Among my internet research findings which are swaying me that way again:

• The ability to relax and spontaneously void the bladder is as much a physical quality as the ability to hold it. So maybe she's not afraid, even if that's how it appears. Even if she has developed the physical ability to contract those muscles, maybe she hasn't developed the physical ability to relax them?

• Apparently there is research showing that kids who potty-train too early often take longer to be fully trained. Kids who start at 18 months aren't fully trained until age 4, on average. Kids who start at age 2 are generally fully trained by age 3. There's a school of thought that kids who "intentionally withhold" may do it because they were trained too early. Clearly 26.5 months was not too early for Elsa, but 25 months may still be too early for Claire.

• Low muscle tone may impact potty training and cause it to be a little delayed. The physical therapist did tell us that Claire's muscle tone is lower than normal, and that was supposedly one of the reasons her walking was so delayed.

For what it's worth, Elsa's been a trooper throughout this whole thing. She's been very helpful and cooperative—she's needed reminding a few times that I can't give her as much attention as she's accustomed to, but other than that she gets an A-plus. She even created this picture, which is supposed to show Claire "how to do the potty dance." See, at the end Claire is successfully peeing on the potty, and she's even smiling about it! If only it were that easy. : )

Well, we'll see what happens tomorrow. I think tomorrow it will either click for her, or we'll be back in diapers. What's that saying, poop or get off the pot? Something like that? How appropriate, right? Time to put an end to the potty dance, one way or the other!