Potty training is tough, for pretty much every parent. You’ve probably heard tips and advice from everyone and their grandma. Get a training seat, make them wear real underwear, bribe them, get a chart. Well, cahutchins, on Reddit decided to make a chart for his 3-year-old and it actually worked! The story is encouraging for anyone trying to help their kid learn to poo in the potty, not in their pants.
So our three-year-old has had the hardest time potty training. We attempted training at 20 months, 2 years, and 2-and-a-half years, and each time was a disaster. We started again a little before he turned 3, and finally started making progress on the pee front, but poop was still a huge fight.
We tried the “three day potty training” method (multiple times), we tried candy bribes, we tried letting him watch as many cartoons as he wanted as long as he sat on his training toilet, all with very little result.
Finally my wife decided we should try a poop chart and stickers, with a prize at the end. Being a graphic designer, I whipped one up. We showed him the toy, the chart, and the stickers all at the same time, and explained how it was going to work.
THAT VERY NIGHT he took a gigantic dump in his training toilet, and put the first sticker up. It has been a week since we started, and he has had only three poop accidents – twice while sleeping and once while shopping, we’re still doing training pants for bedtime and outside of the house. Underwear while awake at home, and not a single underwear mess so far.
He understood the chart immediately, and hasn’t even complained about having to look at the toy he wants and not getting to open it yet. He’s only got two more poops to go before he gets his big prize, we’ll have to get another toy and another chart soon!
So the moral of the story for everyone fighting the potty training fight is, sometimes you just have to keep trying different tactics, and eventually one will stick.
