A poopeecopius journey: The Bao Ng story...by Bao Ng

We've heard that potty training requires the all important 3 P's: preparation, praise, and patience.

Let me tell you a secret: there are no imperative requirements. Just like most things with parenthood, sometimes there is just "go."

A couple of Saturdays ago (11/17), we went to a birthday party for one of Camille's little friends and we met a 14-month-old girl who was potty trained except for nighttime. Chin was so impressed that he wanted to see if we could do this for Camille.

Back up a couple of years... We started potty training Camille at the tender age of 7 weeks old. You did not misread. We started her before she turned 2 months old. We did Elimination Communication (EC) with her for many, many months. She did quite well with both pooping and peeing when held over the toilet or sitting on the potty. Yay! We saved on a ton of diapers.

Then we got lazy...because EC is a heckovalot of work!

Even though we weren't so diligent with EC, we would often put her on the toilet or potty chair after meals to give her a chance to poop. She also did quite well with this.

More recently (oh, say the last 5-6 months), she started not liking the toilet. Girlfriend had more fun things to do. It was tough to get her to sit on the toilet...but it was even more frustrating to change her diaper. Camille has never liked diaper changing times. She would so rarely lay still. So frustrating!!

So, the day after we attended this birthday party, Chin prompted the conversation about potty training. I.e.: all or nothing, just straight to underwear during the daytime.

To give you a little background to this story: I am going through a fulltime doctoral program in nursing, I'm the only parent to wake up multiple times at night to tend to baby Marcus, and I'm just tired all the time. Needless to say, I felt overwhelmed by the possibility of the added task of potty training Camille. But I also felt that I had failed Chin in so many other ways that I couldn't say no. (This is not a prompt for a pity party. I really did feel this way and I think my feelings were valid.)

Apprehensively, I went forth with this effort. That Sunday afternoon while Chin was out grocery shopping, I put Camille in a pair of undies. Was this the point of no return? I dunno. I was going to see what was going to happen next.

What happened next was a puddle of pee in the dining room. Followed by another puddle in the chair. And a puddle in the [carpeted] living room. And then she peed while Chin was holding her that evening.

The next day, I was ready: lots of M&M's as rewards, a pile of clean underwear and pants, a full container of diluted juice to get her going frequently (more opportunities for practice!), bleach wipes, a potty training toilet adapter ring thingy, and some flushable wet wipes. That's preparation for ya. I was totally ready to dole out the praises, too. The patience part...well, we'll see.

That day (the first full day of potty training), she pretty much decided that she would pee everywhere except for in the toilet even though I was taking her to go every 20-30 minutes.

I was so frustrated and wanted to quit. I called up my friend Krista and told her that I was convinced Camille will go to prom in a diaper. I was so mad at Chin for "commissioning" me with this task while he gets to take a minimal role in cleaning up the mess.

But I remembered what Krista said about potty training her son Will, "The first week of potty training, you will feel like it was never going to work. Just keep at it." So I did.

The next day, she managed to deposit all her excrements in the toilet. Yes, all day! This included several outings and a road trip down to Longview for Thanksgiving. This dry streak lasted for over 50 hours, including nighttime. I was so proud of her. I cried. So, so proud!

Since then, she has had just a handful of "accidents;" all caused by us not being mindful of putting her on the toilet regularly. Her diaper has been dry over 50% of the time during the night, too.

And for some reason, Camille is soooo much more pleasant to be around after this switch to big girl underpants! I just feel like the luckiest mother alive. :)

That's it. Our girl is no longer wearing onesies. She might as well shop for a prom dress while she's at it.