My Personal Potty Training a Spirited Toddler Nightmare ~ Help Needed!!

This whole potty training business is something else.  When she was about 18 months she was very interested in going on the little potty ~ she did it great for quite a while. I was thinking ~ sheesh, finally something’s finally going to be easy with her. Yeah right.

A couple weeks, maybe a month of this potty training at 18 months and she suddenly becomes hysterical at the very mention of the potty. Screaming, shrieking, and all means of generally freaking out. NOOOOOO was the word of that time. OK.  We backed off, didn’t push it, and just put the diapers back on. This went on for the better part of a year.

Then she turned 3. We talked in the weeks leading up to her 3rd birthday about what a big girl she was going to be and how big girls need to go on the potty.  We got her cute big girl panties and she was starting to go on the potty. Then one day I decided it must be kinda confusing to be able to go in your diaper sometimes and not in others ~ so I decided there would only be big girl panties during the day.

This worked quite well actually. I was really excited.   She was staying dry all day ~ we even took a couple long trips to Wichita, the zoo, etc and she stayed dry, letting us know she had to go in time to find a bathroom. She completely skipped the little potty and went right for the big potty. So I was pretty excited I wouldn’t have to work on the transition at a later date. It seemed we had finally gotten our spirited toddler potty trained. Yeah right.

A couple weeks ago we went to Tulsa to visit her grandparents, her aunt and cousin (age 2) were up from Texas as well.  Her little cousin has been working on potty training for a while as well so I thought this would work in my favor. What I hadn’t expected was the complete and utter possessiveness of toys on both girls parts. The mere thought of losing a toy to her cousin while going potty seemed to have brought our potty training to a halt. She completely refused to go on the potty, started going in her panties again and screaming and freaking out at the simplest mention of the potty.

Crap.

We bought some pull ups while in Tulsa and just let it go. I thought it would all be fine when we got home. Yeah right.

We got home and she went to the zoo with my mom the next day. My mom said she told her every time she needed to potty and went on the toilet all day at the zoo. When she got home she refused to go on the toilet, she refused to even talk about going on the toilet. Back to screaming, freaking out again.  What the hell?

Now we’ve been home a couple weeks, I’ve put the old “only big girl panties during the day” rule in effect, and she has looked at me, peed on the floor and then said “I peed”. Yeah, I see. I just don’t get it. She was totally potty trained a few weeks ago!! What is a mom to do? Should I get a book? A video? Listen to Dr. Phil? I just don’t freakin’ know, but what I do know is I’m getting frustrated, and I wonder when this is going to happen. I find myself more and more frustrated because she’s done it in the past ~ so now I know she “can”, and it feels like she’s just choosing not to at this point.

I really never thought this is what parenting was going to be like. Apparently I was one of those “perfect” kids lol. Never screamed, never cried (in fact, my mom took me to the doctor thinking something was wrong with me because I never cried), potty trained early because I wanted to be just like mommy. These are the stories I heard about parenthood growing up ~ this is NOT my experience. I’m trying to just relax, and let it happen, because as far as I know, no one has gone to college in diapers, but come on. Can’t we just do one thing without a huge standoff?

What do you think? Really, I want to know, give me some advice, a kick in the ass, I don’t care, just leave me comments so I know I’m not alone in this increasingly overwhelming potty training nightmare.