When one of my Facebook friends announced her pregnancy on Facebook, among the usual congratulations in the comments section was a piece of advice from a friend of hers advising her to potty train her older child as soon as possible before the arrival of the new baby. Because I don’t know that commenter (commentator?) and because I haven’t seen the aforementioned Facebook friend anywhere other than Cyberspace in 20 years (when we were both 4), I decided not to get into it with her friend, but I have been thinking about a way to get the message across that this is a terrible, terrible idea ever since. Obviously my only choice was to write a blog post (I wish there were a way to send private messages over the interweb-- someone should really invent that).
Potty training is not the hard part. Anyone who tells you it is has not finished potty training and/or has a kid who still wears pull-ups (or one of those really smart but hard-to-train cats). I wish someone had warned me ten months ago when I made the fateful decision to throw out all of Benji’s diapers that having a potty trained toddler or preschooler is a lifestyle choice. So as a favour to my Facebook friend and to any other parent who has not yet made the terrible mistake of introducing their child to the toilet, here is a handy list of things I wish someone had told me.
1. You will never again be able to make plans that don’t involve stopping at multiple public bathrooms.
2. You will need to find clean, reliable, stroller-accessible public restrooms near the park, public pool and halfway between your house and anywhere you plan to go in the stroller. Or the car.
3. Every sink will be too high and automatic toilets are the most terrifying things ever. Stay away from those.
4. You will never again make it to the front of a very long line-up. You will make it most of the way and then there will be a bathroom emergency thus forcing you to leave your spot. Forget Toys R Us the week before Christmas. It will never, ever happen.
5. You will spend much time kibitzing on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night as your child will soon learn that while you will say no to providing middle-the-night entertainment, you are willing to hang out indefinitely when nature is (allegedly) calling.
6. The minute you sit down to any meal, nature will call. Usually twice. Three times if you are in a busy food court.
7. Same goes for car trips and haircuts if you are foolish enough to bring your child to one of those.
8. The only thing that could possibly make having a potty trained preschooler less convenient, is having a potty trained preschooler and a baby.
9. Seeing you nurse your baby is always a sign to your older child that it's time to use the bathroom.
10. You will be faced with the choice of whether to put your younger child on the floor of a public bathroom or force your toddler to wipe his own behind.
11. You will spend a great deal of time breastfeeding in public bathrooms while waiting for your older child to do his business (should you still to choose to leave the house). One day you will continue to breastfeed while pulling up your older child’s pants and washing his hands. You will not care that other people are staring.
12. There is nothing more appealing to a young child than the sanitary napkin disposal.
13. Once your younger child is old enough to stand or walk, he will use this newfound freedom to crawl under the stall door. Because who wouldn’t really?
So what’s my advice? Wait. Wait until your preschooler is old enough to get onto the toilet, do his own wiping and reach the sink. If you have two kids, wait until your baby is old enough to stand up nicely while you attend to child 1. Maybe you can just potty train both of them together. Or if you wait long enough maybe they will train themselves--or better-- eachother.
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