Alex Bowers was born and raised in Tennessee. She is the Family Life Director at Preaching Christ Church in Kingsport and is certified in Children and Family Ministry. She is a biological mom of two boys and a bonus mom of one. Her boys are currently 17, 9, and 5 years old. She is married to a firefighter EMT and resides in East Tennessee. She loves coffee, thrift stores, and football.
This is her potty training story.
Three unique kids, three unique potty training adventures
“A good rule of thumb is do not compare experiences between children, even if they are the same gender. With my oldest, potty training came easy. He has the typical oldest child personality. He is responsible, smart, and follows directions. His personality played a big role, I believe, in how quickly he picked up on this skill. He was completely diaper free at 2.5 years old. The only creative aspect I brought to his experience, is bringing a potty to the living room and letting him watch movies until he went.
My middle child has the energy and the slightly stubborn gene. He’s always wanted to do things his way. He also is an outdoor child and so he became used to using the bathroom in nature. For him, chasing a ball and stopping for a convenient secluded tree potty break worked best. As silly as it sounds, when regularizing using the indoor potty, we added a leaf to the bowl and he used it as a target. It sounds ridiculous, but it worked. He was “potty trained” by 4, but was still having accidents at night. He was never waking up dry.
It was a really hard time for me as a mother to have the same conversations over and over, wash sheets daily, and not understand what was going on. I felt like I had failed my child. I didn’t know why it was so much easier with my first son. I searched for tips and tricks endlessly, restricted liquids and drinks, tried medications, and consulted our pediatrician over and over. After 4 years of struggling and hearing it was still common, at age 9 we consulted the urologist.
With my third boy, it was different still. He is the baby and he knew I would change his diaper til his wedding day. We tried all the techniques and it took until right before he started school for him to be fully trained. We tried rewards charts, temporary tattoos, targets to shoot at… nothing was working. Then, a friend of mine offered me a potty seat with stairs that worked with her little girl and it changed the game completely! He’s now headed to kindergarten and still uses the potty stairs seat.
Our lesson from the urologist
If I could share one piece of advice that we learned during our urology appointments, it would be to always remind your child to use the potty before they leave a location AND regularly throughout the day. Always, even until age 10!
As parents we have taught our children to “hold it” in effort to teach them responsibility. The issue is, when a child “holds it” their bladder muscles strengthen and become tight. When their bladder is strengthened in this way and they do finally use the bathroom, their bladder never completely rests or releases. This causes accidents during naps or late age bedwetting. They become used to the feeling of the bladder muscle being tight and never fully empty the bladder when awake. Then, when they finally relax at bed time, their body empties the urine and they have an accident.
Regular reminders to go to the restroom teaches children the feeling of needing to go verses not needing to go, of having a full bladder and having a partially filled or even empty bladder. The “just try” technique is beneficial, because even if you hear “I don’t have to go,” the lesson still stands. We are teaching our children not to wait until they are about to explode and not to strengthen that muscle in such a way that it causes them to have to be retrained later.
My son, now in fourth grade, is having to retrain his mind to not only respond to the “emergency” feeling. We are setting timers all day long to stop and try to potty. This is working, but is a long road, it’s completely relearning a skill, but it’s necessary.
A word of encouragement
Take heart parents, you are not alone. We were told that nighttime bedwetting is common in boys, even up to age 14. Consistency is key. Patience is key.
Also, it’s really important to remember that this is a job. It is work for both you and the child. You have to be dedicated to it. You have to be the consistency. You have to not give up and lose your cool. If I could do it, you can too!”
-Alex
