Being a stay-at-home dad with a daughter has particular challenges.

Don’t get me wrong—I love my daughter. She can be the sweetest, most compassionate, caring and loving person. I cannot describe how much I love her hugs and kisses.

But she always wants to go into the women’s restroom. Whenever we are out, I always pause before deciding what to do. Do I just let her go by herself? What if she locks herself into the stall, can’t turn on the water or reach the soap? How do I not look awkward waiting patiently outside the women’s room?

In public places, such as airports and parks, I prefer to take her with me into the men’s room. However, when she has to go, she has to go! One time, we were at a park when she just ran into the women’s room, and as I ran after her, I stopped in my tracks when I saw the security camera at the entrance. I didn’t want the cops to show up and arrest me for going after a girl in the women’s room!

I was almost arrested once. One day at Santa Monica Pier here in Los Angeles, my daughter was about to pee her pants but we found the men’s room closed for cleaning. I stood at the door of the women’s room, yelling inside every 30 seconds to make sure she was OK. Just as she finished up, a cop car showed up to “check” that I wasn’t some “weird guy” on the pier Once the officer saw my young daughter, he understood my predicament.

Taking her to the men’s room can be equally awkward now that she knows that boys have penises and girls have “jinas.” She asks why boys get to pee at the urinal and she cannot. Sometimes she walks up to other people while they are using the urinal. This is when I realized the concept of privacy isn’t inherent; it has to be taught. Add to that the judgemental looks you get from others when a father helps his daughter to the men’s restroom. Those looks of indignation that “mom” should be doing it (or the assumption that there is even a mom) or that unsolicited advice on how to raise your child. Y

Another restroom challenge is when I have to go and ask her to “stay put” for just enough time to allow me to finish my business. Most of the time, she listens. One time, however, we were visiting the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. She was so thrilled by the experience of seeing the bridge that she forgot to tell us she had to pee, and she started to pee in her car seat. We quickly jumped out of the car to go to the restroom and clean up. It was a big public restroom with dozens of people coming in and out.

After I had cleaned her up, I asked her to wait while I used the facilities. But she wanted to see the bridge again! I almost peed my pants as I ran outside— zipper still down and screaming her name—to catch her. Thankfully, I caught her just before she stepped into the road to cross the parking lot.

I breathe a sigh of relief when a family restroom is available because we can all use the restroom together without a challenge arising. I can change my toddler. We can both go to the restroom in private. I don’t have to worry about her running out the door. It’s nice to see more restaurants, malls and public sites have family restrooms. Sadly, too many non-family people use them for the same reason that I like using them–privacy. It is frustrating when I have waited patiently, too many times, outside the family room just to see a non-parent come out and don’t care even to apologize when they see a family waiting–even when my daughter is doing the “potty” dance. We need more family rooms and stricter enforcement of rules around them so actual families can use them.

Fellow dads—how do you navigate going to the restroom challenge in public facilities? How do you address privacy issues? Do you have any fun stories to share? Post them in the comment section!

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This blog post, which first appeared on our L.A. Dads Group blog in 2017, is part of the #NoDadAlone campaign. Fathering Together/City Dads Group, the National At-Home Dad Network, and Fathers Eve are joining forces to amplify messages that help dads recognize we are not alone! Follow #NoDadAlone on Instagram, and learn more at NoDadAlone.com.

Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash

As a lot of my friends are singing the potty-training blues right now, so I figured I’d share a little insight. Here are five potty-training books, written just for children, that I think every parent should invest in.

A word of warning: no matter how good the potty-training books are, you’re sure to hit some bumps in the road along the way. The best advice I can give you is to take it all in stride and keep going. There is no feeling like when your little one finally succeeds. There’s going to come a point when it all starts to make sense to them and they just “get it.” That’s the first sign that you’ve reached the last leg of your journey.

These are listed in no particular order:

Best Potty-Training Books

1. Everyone Poops

Everyone Poops is a classic. I can also say that truer words were never spoken. Everyone DOES poop. Even your toddler. The only thing separating us all is WHERE we do it! It’s a little more graphic than some books, but it was originally published in 1977. Maybe things were less PC back then. Remember to call it “Everyone” and not “Everybody” like I have been because you wind up replacing the lyrics on REM’s song “Everybody Hurts” and you’ll be singing it like that for days.

2. Daniel Goes to the Potty

It should be no surprise that even after his death, Fred Rogers continues to help teach children valuable lessons using a wide array of interesting characters. We happened to catch the Daniel Tiger episode where he reminds his viewers “If you have to go potty, STOP and go right away …”, and the book follows the television show pretty closely. The only benefit to the show -vs- the book, is that when it’s over you can watch something else. The book has a button that your child pushes that mimics a toilet flushing. It gets old after about the 42nd time.

3. Dinosaurs Love Underpants

Do you think you know your history? I bet you didn’t know that dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus Rex weren’t as vicious as we once thought. They didn’t want to eat people, they just wanted their underpants. I love the concept behind the book and the illustrations are really great. It gets children excited about wearing underpants – even a T-Rex wants to wear them!

4. Even Pirates Poop

Another of the potty-training books that uses something that appeals to little boys (pirates) as a tool to help break the going-to-the-bathroom stigma. While the main character did finally use the potty chair and do the job, I didn’t like that everyone was so nonchalant at the beginning about him putting anything (and everything) in the potty seat except for what belongs there. If I walked into the bathroom and found flags in the toilet I’d be less likely to recommend the book. The good news is that the idea didn’t rub off on the boys and it’s added to my list!

5. Elmo’s Potty Time

We bought this one as a video, but I know it’s available in book form.  It was our first intro to potty training and a good place to start because it’s Elmo. I mean, what child doesn’t like Elmo? One of the advantages of the video is that it’s 45 minutes long, and captured their attention very well from the start. It also comes with a downloadable Potty Certificate.

With the help of these potty-training books, a good schedule, and a lot of patience, the toilet-training blues could be a thing of the past.

A version of this first appeared on Double Trouble Daddy.

Our family’s most memorable summer road trip occurred when our two daughters were quite young — and quite needy, as it turns out. My wife and I were taking the family to our hometown, a three-hour drive away.

The first two hours went smoothly. My 3-month-old drifted between sleep and blank stares, and my 3-year-old napped before starting to watch a movie. We had recently indulged in a minivan with a DVD player, which was unthinkable a few years previous but I admit was wonderful for family trips. Granted, I had explained to my daughter that the mysterious video machine only worked when we traveled long distances, not during the daily three-minute ride to the grocery store. Somehow, she accepted my logic.

My daughter was watching, on this hot summer day, Ron Howard’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas, starring Jim Carrey. Just before the third hour of our trip, I was thinking about the movie’s decibel level. How could Richie Cunningham direct such an obnoxious Christmas remake? But my musings were harshly interrupted by the words every traveling parent dreads: “Gotta go pee-pee! Gotta go pee-pee!” This chant was immediately compounded by an eruption of screams from my infant daughter that seemed to indicate she had not been fed for a week.

Enter panic. I kicked myself for not stopping at the rest area we had just passed. I tried to calculate how much time my daughter’s bladder could buy us, but her tone conveyed imminent urination. So I resigned myself to the prospect of a soaked car seat and an extremely uncomfortable toddler, followed by a lot of work at the next exit.

Then, a small miracle: my wife remembered we had an inflated port-a-potty in the trunk. But we would need to pull over to set it up. Reluctantly, I agreed, and we pulled over and put on our hazard lights.

After some struggle, I managed to set up the potty in the back of the van for my oldest while my wife began breastfeeding the baby. My 3-year-old actually became excited now, since going to the bathroom had become a new adventure. It was hard for me to laugh, though, because just three feet away tractor trailers roared by. As I quickly put a twist-tie around the bag of urine and got back in the van, I just wanted to resume driving.

That’s when the state trooper pulled up behind us.

Enter a new series of anxious questions:

• Can we get a ticket for this?
• Did I remember to bring my new insurance card?
• Might this simply be a hidden-camera headache commercial?
• Does “gotta go pee-pee” qualify as an emergency?
• Which emergency — a toddler’s need to urinate or a baby’s need for breastfeeding — is the better excuse to give the officer?

This last question I asked my wife as the officer approached, and she answered: “Definitely tell him we had to breastfeed the baby.” I was a little puzzled by her confidence, but I took her advice.

“What seems to be the problem?” he asked upon reaching my window.

“Our baby was screaming so we stopped to breastfeed her,” I said meekly, feeling he might scold us for being pushovers. Instead, he simply mumbled “OK” and walked back to his car.

I turned to my wife: “That’s weird. He kept looking down the road as he talked to me. It’s like he didn’t even care why we were stopped.”

“Do you want to know why?” she asked with a smile. “Because I had my breast out and was holding the baby when he was at the window. Men usually look anywhere else but at a breastfeeding woman. I wasn’t even feeding the baby at the time!”

I didn’t know whether to be appalled or impressed. Either way, the rest of the trip was uneventful, though it was awkward to arrive at my father-in-law’s with a bag of urine dangling from my hand.

There is nothing worse than feeling that you have failed your kids. And as I am wiping the butt of a 5-year-old, I know that I have failed him.

My daughter took three weeks to potty train when she was 3. She had one accident afterward. But I still can’t leave the house without some extra pants, a few pairs of pull-ups and wipes. While he is able to keep it at bay during the school day, once he is home it’s hit or miss. There are days when he is wearing the same underwear he was when he left for school at bedtime. Then it’s high fives and hugs all around. But there are days, when you walk by him and you catch that smell. It’s disgusting to have to wipe poop off a kid who is so smart, funny and charming and is so adept at playing video games and driving a go-cart.

Perhaps, it’s my giving up some days and just letting him use the pull-ups, instead of knowing that he will mess up pants and underwear that I will need to wash.

There was a great article about how to potty train a child on Modern Mom that discusses my exact problem with my son. Looking at the writer’s list of suggestions I realize I might be slowing down the process:

Stop talking about it. Pretend it doesn’t bother you whether or not he uses the toilet. When he stops getting negative attention for failing to perform, he may start using the toilet for some positive attention.”

Here is the problem, it does bother me. And I know it bothers him, he would never want to be changed in front of his friends or cousins. And when he needs a change I try to be very discreet, because even a 5-year-old has pride.

I’ve tried to bribe him, saying if he would stop pooping in his pants or in pull-ups that the money we would save from buying those pull-ups could be used for toys or whatever he chooses. But that doesn’t seem to work.

Most children who are resistant to toilet training are enmeshed in a power struggle with their parents. The cause of the power struggle is usually reminder resistance-an oppositional response to excessive reminders to sit on the toilet. In addition, most resistant children have been held on the toilet against their will. The child’s contribution to the power struggle is usually a difficult, strong-willed temperament.”

Armenians have a word “enad” that means extreme stubbornness, even when it’s against your own best interest. And we are very lucky to have a strong-willed son, but I think he has it in his head that he is winning this battle with us, by pooping and making us clean it up.

From the reading I have done on how to potty train a child, I will take some of these tips and hopefully, they will work. And I will be able to leave the house without any extra stuff. Living the dream.

A version of this first appeared on Great Moments in Bad Parenting.

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Pull-Ups Training Pants. All thoughts and opinions are the author’s.  

My toddler’s favorite word is “No.” He says it a lot. A LOT. It’s his automatic answer to everything and sometimes he even just randomly says it. He’s not big on changes, hates transitions, and if something isn’t his idea he will automatically resist it.

Now throw in a dash of always wanting control of any given situation with just a little sprinkle of “Jeez, Dad, I have better things to do” and you get the idea of what we’re dealing with here.

Yeah. Potty training this kid wasn’t going to be easy. If we’re going to get anything done with him, it was going to take a partnership.

And so potty training begins

We tried some common methods at first. But his resistance to just sitting on the potty was so strong we had to have him go pants-less for a while and wait until, uh, the groundhog peeked out of the hole, so to speak, to get him to see what the whole point of it was.

But even though he now understood why he needed to use the potty, he would still resist sitting on it. He hated being without pants, and if he was wearing them, he would refuse to admit he needed to go potty even when he was in the middle of the act.

We needed help.

Then Pull-Ups Training Pants (https://www.pull-ups.com/en-us/products/training-pants) came to our rescue with the Pull-Ups Potty Partnership (https://www.pull-ups.com/en-us/potty-training/program/new-way-train-pull-ups-potty-partnership).

Our son loved the Disney movie Cars, and what do you know, some Pull-Ups came with Lightning McQueen and Mater on them.

Instant win for our son.

He liked those characters so much he wanted to try the Pull-Ups right away. And, because he could slide them on and off by himself, he felt more in control of his potty training. They’re also designed specifically to teach potty training skills.

Instant win for dad and mom.

Suddenly, we had a working partnership. Liam was now more conducive to potty training. He had cool Cars Big Kid pants and when it was time to go, he’d, well, go. Much better plan than us simply waiting him out until he absolutely had to sit on the potty.

Taking a stand on standing to pee

Our toddler became a Big Kid, and began to act more like one when it was potty time. He will now even stand when it’s time to pee. While I don’t recommend starting your boy off with this technique, and, yes, it can get a little messy, the confidence he built up from being able to put on and take off Pull-ups on his own to go like a Big Kid was invaluable to him.

I’ve been asked if I worry about regression. Not really. Potty training is a learning process, after all, and sometimes setbacks and steps back occur. The trick is not to worry about it but just deal with it as it happens.

Because another point of a partnership is you help each other out when goals aren’t achieved. The point is to encourage, not berate. Potty training is complicated for toddlers to learn so while setbacks might be disheartening, they are completely normal. You need to remain patient and stay the course.

The thing about parenting is that while your child is learning from you, you are also learning from your child. When it comes to potty training, approach it as a partnership. It’s about learning how to go potty like a Big Kid, and that means you have to treat your child as a Big Kid.

He’s got Pull-Ups personality

You need to pay attention to your child’s personality type. The potty personality quiz at https://www.pull-ups.com/en-us/potty-training/program/child-personality helps parents determine which of these personalities their child resembles and provide information to help customize the potty training journey from the beginning. What may work for one child may not work for another and that’s OK. Some children are more independent and resistant to change, as our son was (the potty personality ranked him as Squirrel — always on the go, won’t stop playing even when nature calls), others are not. You must understand your child’s personality and incorporate that into your partnership, or potty training will be an exceedingly long, difficult, and, yes, messy process for you both.

If you have a highly independent child like ours, you’ll need to let them feel in control. A Pull-Ups Partnership will be just what the doctor ordered. If you understand your child’s personality traits, you will help them understand better how to navigate life.

And that is the entire point of being a parent in the first place.

Disclosure: This potty time post is sponsored by Pull-Ups® Training Pants. All thoughts and opinions are the author’s.

In a parent’s life, you see true joy and excitement in your child’s eye at a few special moments: when he is presented with his first birthday cake, taking his first steps or, in my son’s case, when he saw a box full of Pull-Ups® Training Pants with Mickey Mouse on them.

That’s right, my son was ecstatic about opening the big box that arrived with enough training pants to get him ready to join the Pull-Ups® Potty Partnership.

This box and its contents are the beginning of a major transition in my son’s life, a transition even he understands is a big moment in his life – potty training. This box and the Pull-Ups inside are going to help give him the independence he needs on his potty journey and – believe it or not — going into this, I knew that it was going to be a fun journey.

I felt my son was ready for this move to Pull-Ups because he would start mimicking myself or his sister when he would follow us into the bathroom. At potty time, he would try to slide his diapers off and sit on the stool in the bathroom. Although he never did anything in the potty, this was a sign that he was ready.

The Pull-Ups Potty Partnership has a cool website dedicated to helping parents at this stage in their child’s life. To start, I went there to learn my child’s Potty Training Personality.

Find their personality? Yep. Knowing your child’s personality helps you select the potty time teaching methods your child responds best to so potty training will be easier.

According to the quiz, my son’s potty personality is a Puppy: Lots of energy, pretty easy to direct, loving, enthusiastic, and irritable when tired, hungry or sick. That described my kid down to a tee. Knowing this would help my wife and I use ways that best motivated his learning and made potty time fun time.

So how do we make pooping fun?

When we potty trained his older sister, we used charts, songs and games to get her to use the potty. The chart had her favorite cartoon characters on it. We would use one sticker for when she did No. 1 and two stickers for No. 2. We sing a song with her where we would just repeat, “Come out poo-poo, come out!” before you knew it our little girl was potty trained.

Since it was kind of easy with our daughter, we thought potty time would be easy with our son, too. Boy, were we wrong. We quickly learned potty training shouldn’t be done through a one-size-fits-all method. Kids are unique and special in their own ways and the key to success in potty training is working WITH your child’s personality, not against it.

Our son was not as ready to start using the potty as we initially thought. Even though he loved putting on his Pull-Ups, he would not let us know when he needed to go to the bathroom so we’d find many surprises for us in his Pull-Ups every now and then.

We introduced our son to a potty training progress chart and showed him how he could put a sticker on it whenever he did any of the items listed there. It started pretty well but the important thing I also learned about using stickers is that they are most effective when used as an immediate positive reinforcement rather than as a goal to save up for later. Toddlers don’t have a solid sense of time, so we always gave him the sticker right away and let him show off his progress to family members and friends.

We also used a song to make potty time more fun for our son.

Our son loves to sing and dance, so why not sing the same song that we used to sing with our daughter? We did but it seemed like we sat there forever with him waiting for him to have some sort of movement. We never tried to rush him, for fear that he would not want to sit on the potty, so we just let him take his time.

As of this moment, we are still potty training but making progress. Some days he lets us know he has to go due to the cooling sensation he gets from the Pull-Ups® Cool & Learn® Training Pants. While by then it was too late, it really did teach me to start to recognize the signs of needing to go because we had a breakthrough recently when he ran to the bathroom all by himself and called out to my wife. When she walked in, he was sitting on the potty where he peed all by himself.

Maybe this is the moment that we were waiting for … we’ll see what happens next.

This is Part Two of the author’s adventure in teaching his child to go potty using Janet Jackson’s “Control” album as a guideline. Read Part One here.

Track 5: The Pleasure Principle

Day 2 began with us trying to get Olivia to go potty, figuring she had a full bladder from the previous night, but she refused.

As the morning progressed we noticed that every so often she’d hold herself, shift her shoulders from side to side while simultaneously bringing her knees together, then throw her head back and whip her hair, which looks something like this):

We’d ask whether she just had to go potty, or if she was figuring out the dance moves to her next music video, and she’d always say the latter. After about 2 hours of this she finally acknowledged that she had to go, placed her aspirations of winning the video music award for best choreography on hold, and ran into the bathroom.

Upon completing her first transaction of the day, Olivia obtained enough stickers for another prize. As she picked out her loot we high-fived her and reminded her about the big girl she was well on her way to becoming. We also noticed that her motivation for telling us when she had to go was heavily dependent on how close she was to getting something from the mystery box. If a prize wasn’t involved she couldn’t be bothered, much like my own ideas on what going to the gym should be like. I’d be so much more motivated to work out if I received a new book, action figure or a cupcake afterwards. Wouldn’t getting a cupcake defeat the purpose, you ask? I’d just have to go back in and work out again … to get another cupcake as a reward for burning off the last one. I’d better trademark this before someone else steals the idea.

Track 6: When I Think Of You

As Day 2 continued, Olivia gradually went from paying attention every 20 minutes when we checked in with her to flat out ignoring us. We needed her to notice when she felt like she had to go potty, but all she wanted to pay attention to were the toys she was playing with. In fact, after her first accident of the day I asked why she didn’t tell us she had to go, and she said that she wanted to play. Basically, she didn’t want to interrupt her playtime with something as frivolous as evacuating her bladder. So when the feeling came up she’d do a little dance, will it back into submission, and then carried on with what she was doing. With that kind of dedication, and some practice going pee in a bottle, I’m fairly certain that our child will make a fantastic NYC cab driver some day.

Track 7: (S)He Doesn’t Know I’m Alive

We hadn’t left the house since beginning the potty-training regimen, so we decided to go on a brief walk to get some air and a change of scenery. While out we ran into our neighbor and her daughter, who goes to the same daycare as Olivia. They joined us for the stroll, and upon returning to our building we invited them in for some play time and conversation. The minute we got inside we prompted Olivia to try and go, but she was too busy worrying about which of her toys her friend wanted to play with.

I tried getting her to focus on the task at hand, even waved my hand in front of her face, but she was completely distracted. It’s funny how a toy that’s been neglected for months by your child can suddenly turn into the most important toy ever, ever when another child comes over and picks it up. Olivia rushed over and did her best to try wheel and deal her friend into relinquishing the item, offering her things like every single one of her other toys, all of the savings in her piggy bank ($1.82) and a month long use of Jodi and I to cook, clean or do laundry whenever it was needed. Our child was willing to loan us out so she could get a purple plastic tea cup with a smiley face on it back into her greedy little hands. I don’t blame her though because that thing is both functional and completely adorable.

Track 8: Let’s Wait Awhile

As the impromptu play date continued, we noticed the tell-tale signs that Olivia still needed to go potty pretty badly. Every time we asked if she had to go she’d stop for a second, then say, “I don’t have to go,” or “in 10 minutes,” as if we were supposed to believe her and set a timer. The focus of Day 2 for us was to try and reinforce Olivia recognizing when she had to go and telling us, but her focus was doing everything in her power to silence both us and the beck and call of her bladder.

Unfortunately, our child’s willpower didn’t last much longer, and the play area got hit with a flash flood of urine. Maybe next time she’ll answer her bladder’s call instead of sending it to voicemail.

Track 9: Funny How Time Flies (When You’re Having Fun)

Day 3, and those following it, showed signs of improvement from our child. In fact, we’ve now been at it for about a month and while some things have improved, others have remained the same.

She’s gotten much better about recognizing when she has to go, and only has minor accidents here and there. Unfortunately, she still seems to be holding off until the last possible minute to tell us. We’re also struggling with getting her to go potty when we’re out in public. We practically have to drag her into a restaurant or store bathroom and plead with her to try. Although to be fair, some of the public restrooms in NYC are horror filled nightmares to begin with, so I can’t blame her much there.

We’ve got less than two months left until Olivia starts pre-K, and I’m confident we’ll have her ready to go potty on her own by then. She’s still struggling with certain things, like cleaning up after herself, pulling her pants up and down and lighting a match after she does a number two, so we’ve made those our main focus with each visit to the bathroom. My worry is that she won’t be completely able to do everything and her new school won’t let her attend. It would be devastating to both her and us if they won’t let her in, and I’m not sure what we would do if that would happen.

As a parent, I’m willing to do just about anything to make sure Olivia is happy so I’m already thinking about backup plans. Mainly, convincing my boss to let me work remotely from the school so I can help Olivia in the bathroom until she’s capable. If that’s not an option, maybe I can become the school janitor. I’ve always wanted a cool key-chain with a retractable cord that I could attach to my belt loop. It’s a small price to pay, but I’ll do it for my child.

A version of this first appeared on Our Little Mixtape.

Gif: via GIPHY

This is about control: our toddler’s control. Control of what she says, control of what she does, control of when she goes pee-pee on the potty.

A while ago we tried toilet training with mixed results. We knew for Olivia to attend pre-K this September she needed to be fully toilet trained, so we had to get serious and find something that worked. I did some internet searching and found a good program by Jam and Lewis, which called for patience, drum machines, synthesizers and lots of underpants. Unfortunately this was vetoed by my wife and we ended up trying a three-day method that we found online. Ready or not, it was time to give Olivia control. Lots of it. But was she ready?

Track 1: Control

Positive attitudes? Check. Sticker chart and rewards? Check. Alcohol for the end of the day when our child is asleep and our patience has been exhausted? Check.

We started by getting Olivia out of bed and making a huge deal that toilet training today was “Big Girl Day.” There were balloons, cheers, a key to the city presented to her by the mayor and lots of underpants for Olivia to choose from. We explained what the day meant, reminded her to tell us when she felt like she needed to go potty, and pointed out the big girl toilet where all business transactions would need to go down from here on out. She was excited, and frankly so were we, because no more diapers or pull-ups sounded like a dream come true.

After picking out the inaugural pair of underpants we all sat down on our living room couch to eat breakfast. Olivia had requested a bagel with cream cheese and we threw in chocolate milk as a treat;  something to help set the positive tone and entice her into compliance. Big girls who go pee-pee on the potty get the better things in life: chocolate milk, underpants with cartoon characters on them, timeshares in Aruba, etc. We were all smiles, enthusiasm … and then she peed on the couch.

We put on our best faces. We cleaned Olivia up, remained positive, reminded her to tell us when she felt like she had to go and resumed our breakfast.

Minutes later she peed on the couch again.

And then on the floor right after we cleaned her up.

Every time this happened we gave her encouragement and guidance, and every time she’d say, “OK,” and nod yes like she understood. Much of the morning went this way, and it seemed like relying on her to tell us when she had to go wasn’t quite working. Accidents continued to happen, and our child seemed to enjoy watching Daddy clean up her messes. I swear I heard her sarcastically say, “You missed a spot!” one more than one occasion. This was not going to be easy.

Track 2: Nasty

Of all the things you need to bring into toilet training, cleaning supplies are definitely up near the top of the list.

You will be cleaning up after your child a lot, and in our case that happened very frequently. Since we were having some difficulties early on we decided to keep Olivia off the couch and only let her sit on a small wooden chair. Luckily we have hardwood floors in our apartment, which made spotting the messes and cleaning them up fairly easy. This was a good thing because for a while there it seemed like I was cleaning up after her every 10 minutes. She’d get lost in an activity like coloring or calculating the odds in an upcoming horse race she had a bet on, and then suddenly we’d hear the yelp signifying that another accident had happened.

The guide we were following says to pick your child up immediately when you see a sign that they have to go (or in our case, after the fact) and hurry them into the bathroom to sit on the potty. Instead of pointing out what needs to happen when she has to go, all this did for Olivia was instill anger and resentment.

So I decided to try what I like to call the ‘CSI scared straight approach’ to toilet training. While she sat on the potty protesting, I followed the trail of urine from the bathroom to the scene of the crime, marking each puddle with a numbered evidence flag. Then I made a chalk outline of the initial accident, police taped off the area, positioned all of her stuffed animals as shocked onlookers, and then brought her out to see what she had done. I pulled out my sunglasses, put them on as I made a one-liner about all the messes being made, and then cued The Who’s ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again.’ Needless to say my reference was lost on her, so it was time to move on to Plan B.

Track 3: What Have You Done For Me Lately

The potty chart/sticker system we set up for our child seemed pretty straightforward: one sticker for a successful pee on the potty, two stickers for poop. Olivia asked about how many she’d get for a toot, and though we applaud her efforts those, unfortunately, do not count (but are quite hilarious).

Every time a row on the toilet training chart was filled with stickers, she would get a prize from a mystery box we set up. It was filled with an assortment of things we figured she’d love to get as a reward, like small toys, books, games and office supplies (what toddler doesn’t want a staple remover?). Olivia was excited at the prospect of getting a prize, but it seemed like she was never going to get there.

We finally decided to throw in a “gimme row” of stickers for her when she halfheartedly finished going pee on the toilet after another accident. We cheered and applauded, hoping that maybe this would boost her confidence. She excitedly grabbed her prize, took it into our living room to open it up … and peed all over the floor again.

Track 4: You Can Be Mine

The rest of Day 1 went mostly the same, but there were a few bright spots. There were no accidents during her nap, and we even had a few instances where she actually told us she had to go. My wife put Olivia down for the night while I mopped the floor to get the ‘my toddler just marked her territory’ smell out. Then we knocked a few back, discussed what did and didn’t work, and hoped that Day 2 would bring about some positive change (and drier floors).

We knew Olivia got what we wanted her to do during toilet training, the problem was getting her to want to do it. If there’s anything we’ve learned from our child, it’s that she won’t do anything we ask her to if she’s not into it. She needs the proverbial carrot on a stick to get her motivated, so we decided to put a little more emphasis on the prize box, stickers and any other incentives we had.

We also determined that Day 2 would need us to check in with Olivia every 20 minutes or so to make sure she’s mindful of whether she feels like she needs to go. Basically, we were going to bug the crap out of our child all day, but make it worth her while.

— Part Two of this toilet training saga appears tomorrow.

A version of this first appeared on Our Little Mixtape.

During the months leading up to Olivia’s birth I, like most other parents, would daydream about all the wonderful things I would teach my child to do as she got older. Things like how to ride a bike, how to skip stones on water and how to effectively parry an incoming Chun Li super move in Street Fighter.

Then the reality of having a child happens and you realize those things are luxury goals that can only come after you’ve taught them how to successfully function in our society. It’s up to you to get them to eat with utensils, to say “please” and “thank you,” to bathe regularly (using soap!) and, our current initiative, how to use the toilet.

Our daycare had notified us that they had begun potty training Olivia, which meant we needed to follow suit at home. After reminding ourselves about how lucky and privileged we are to have the people at her daycare taking the brunt of this responsibility, we set forth and bought supplies.

Disney themed pull-ups? Check.

Potty training chart with a cute bunny that is also learning how to go like a big girl? Check.

Warm and inviting toilet decoration to entice her to do the deed? Check.

We would ask every 20 minutes if she needed to go and reward her (stickers, cookies, scratch-off tickets, etc.) when a transaction was completed. The game was afoot.

But she won’t let it go

Olivia showed potty training promise early on, but then things started to fall apart. We’d get reports from daycare about how she’d just want to sit on the potty and not do anything, or that she’d just flat-out refuse to try. Things at home weren’t going much better, especially after she tried prying one of the reward stickers off the potty training chart, ripped it and then just shredded the chart altogether in frustration.

After a few weeks of this, we spoke to daycare and decided to put training on hold and revisit it later. When that time rolled around and daycare notified us that Olivia was showing interest again (e.g., sniffing around the bowl, marking it as her territory, lifting the lid and shouting “Is anybody home?”), so we picked right back up where we left off and hoped it would work this time.

The second time around began with a bit of a fizzle. She’d only go here and there, then we traveled for the holidays and just gave up during the break to make things easier for everyone. When we got back from our trips, we vowed to keep on top of things and try to reward her even more for going. We brought back the chart and told her that for every three successful potties we’d give her a treat. It could be ice cream, candy, a new (small) toy or she could trade those things in for what was behind door number 2. Sure it’s a gamble, but she could walk away with a sweet Chevy Vega…or a llama.

Some success but not much

Stickers and prizes only worked so well. Olivia was doing her best to remain stubborn and only go when she deemed it was time. I decided that enough was enough and did what any modern-day parent would do in this situation: I Googled the problem. Of the many potty training tactics I found, these seemed to resonate the most with me:

• Dying the toilet water with food coloring, which will react and change as they go and make fun colors. Make sure you don’t use darker colors though, because then they’ll question whether they are children of a demon or if they need immediate medical attention.
• Incentivizing the act of flushing the toilet, which is normally off-limits for them. Keep in mind you will also have to instruct them on how long to hold the handle and, depending on your toilet, the ancient art of jiggling the handle.
• Making them feel proud when they actually go. We normally give her a high-five and tell her what a big girl she is, but I think we could step it up a bit. From now on, every time she goes there’s going to be confetti and balloons falling from the ceiling while a marching band rolls through our apartment playing Queen’s “We Are The Champions.”
• Bringing technology into the mix and getting her a potty seat with an iPad dock so she has something to do while she waits. Adults get to play on their phones or read while they go, so why can’t our kids? They’ll be out of your hair for a while and it’ll only take one or two times before they’ve accessed your social media accounts or bought thousands of dollars worth of microtransactions in their favorite game. But hey, easy-mode parenting!

Here comes the princess

Things are still hit or miss, however, our saving grace could be coming from one of the last places we would have expected: the magical land of Arendelle.

Our daycare hosts movie nights on Fridays for kids ages 4 to 7. The catch: the kids have to be potty trained. Parents get to go out and have some fun for a few hours while their little one(s) have some fun of their own. Wouldn’t you know it, the next film to be shown is Frozen. If I remember correctly, Olivia’s reaction to this news went something like this.

Who cares if we already own a copy and she could watch it at any time? Or that she had sung “Let It Go” until my ears bled? This is a chance for her to have a night out with her friends. However, can we get her potty trained in time for this massive event which is circled in purple glitter on her calendar and she asks about every single day?

I have to admit, things have improved quite a bit since this event came up. At first, Olivia would go potty once and ask, “I go to the movie night now?” It’s adorable, but we had to let her down gently and remind her that she needed to keep doing this every day. It’s taking some time, but I think it’s starting to sink in. Sure, we have days where she’s defiant and doesn’t want to go for us. We keep reminding her about the movie night, which works some of the time. Daycare is reporting that she’s been able to ‘let it go’ fairly consistently for them, which is great news.

In the end, all we can do is try to get her to go and keep her motivated. The potty training sticker chart is filling up fast, treats have been doled out and our little girl is well on her way to becoming a big girl who can potty like the big kids do. I’m confident she’ll make the movie night and I’m hopeful that she’ll keep that momentum going after her 77th viewing of Frozen has come and gone. If not, we may have to bribe daycare to throw it back into the rotation sooner rather than later.

A version of Let It Go first appeared on Our Little Mixtape.

My son has reached the state of potty training they don’t tell you about. As new parents, the end goal seems to be the mythical day when they make it to the toilet and you don’t have to change a diaper. Congratulations, you’re potty trained!