Potty Training: Day 1

We decided to take the long, holiday weekend to start potty training Troy. For a week up until we had a countdown calendar on the refrigerator. Every night, we had Troy put a sticker on it and count the number of days until no diapers. We read that this helps the kid prepare for the sudden change instead of being surprised. He seemed pretty cool with the idea, but I’m not sure he completely understood the full implication of what it meant.

We decided to do the method of keeping Troy naked all day, so he’d be more consciously aware of his body and when he needed to go. He was not a fan of that! He wanted pants, or underwear, or something. So, I told him I’d also go naked to give him some solidarity. He seemed cool with that. It was a little weird to be walking around naked all day, and even more so to be playing with my equally naked son. It’s interesting how the world has made us feel ashamed of our nakedness. I didn’t want Troy to feel awkward, so I tried to carry on as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I want to preserve his innocence as long as possible. So, we ran around upstairs, wrestled, and barrel-rolled across the floor just like any normal weekend. At one point, we were playing with his trains, when my wife came upstairs and saw us. She started laughing, and she said, “You guys look weird.” I replied, “Why? We’re just two naked dudes sitting around, playing with trains! What’s weird about that?”

All in all, Troy did great with his first day of potty training. Much better than I thought he’d do. About an hour after he got up this morning, we had our first success. We asked him if he needed to go, and he told us he did. An hour later, he told us he needed to go on his own. Every hour after that, he was going potty. It seems like he’s on the same “every hour” cycle as me!