Naked Potty Training

My 2 ½-year-old son, John, is almost potty trained. But only when he’s naked.

As soon as I put underpants on him, he pees. If I put a Pull-Up on him, he pees in that too, and poops the poop he’d been saving just for the occasion.

We didn’t plan to train him this way. His older brother, Ben, was in a troublesome, midwinter “must be naked” stage, and John followed suit. As you can imagine, immediate potty training ensued.

A few years before we had children, my husband and I got into a potty training discussion with another pre-baby couple, John and Terri. John said his mom trained him using the naked method. When the pee ran down his leg and onto the floor, toddler John was so dismayed that he promptly began peeing and pooping in the proper location.

“Why doesn’t everyone do that?” we all wondered aloud, in our smug, pre-baby way, thinking we knew jack about raising kids.

When our first son, Ben, was 2, neither my husband or I had the nerve to let him run around the house without a diaper. A vindictive, peeing cat and Ben’s first bout with the stomach flu had left us somewhat traumatized by bodily fluids.

By the time Ben turned 3, we were willing to try it, but Ben would not tolerate anything other than a snugly fastened diaper — no nakedness, no underwear, and positively no peeing on the potty. My training method went like this:

“Ben, come sit on the potty.”
“No!”
“C'mon, I’ll give you M&Ms.”
“I don’t want M&Ms!”
“Um, OK.”

This went on until one week before preschool started, when I realized, while packing for a trip to Lake Winnipesaukee, that “Ben’s not potty trained!” With typical rookie-parent naiveté, I had signed him up three years in advance at a non-Pull-Up-friendly preschool. In my first episode of utter maternal failure, my preoccupation with writing projects, errant babysitters and his 20-month-old brother meant that my first-born child would not be allowed to attend school!

So Ben got an emergency crash course in The Potty during our week at the lake.

Day 1: Pull-Ups (yes, unbelievably, he was still in diapers).
Day 2: Underwear, accompanied by whining, pleading and crying (mostly by Brian and me).

Within a few days, Ben was trained. He pooped his pants once, and I will never forget him yelling “I gotta poop!” and hopping on one foot out of the living room, his other leg up in the air and a large load bulging from his bottom.

John peed on the potty too during that fateful week, one year ago. But yet, he’s still not trained.

My mom swears that she potty trained all four of her children by age 2. I have challenged her on this, and she insists it’s true. Many women from that generation (age 60+) make this claim. But I’ve determined that their version of potty training consists of chasing the youngster around with a jar or potty chair and “catching” the pee or poop. I ask you, who really has been potty trained in this scenario?

Granted, with the advent of super-comfort, ultra-soft-n-dry disposable diapers, our generation has a less urgent need to potty train. Buying and throwing out disposable diapers is not nearly as labor intensive as trailing a 2 ½ year old, waiting for him to squat (and doing the ensuing laundry when you miss). But disposables do dent the budget, especially since I have a 4 year old who still wears two 50-cent heavy-duty disposables each night.

Yesterday we were home all day, and John did not have one accident. He also did not have any pseudo accidents, during which he pretends he’s a fireman putting out a fire (you know the drill). He even pooped on the potty without help from me, then gleefully said, “See? It looks like a snaaaake!”

But today, we had errands to run and spent lots of time in the car. So I put the Pull-Up on him (knowing he’d pee in his underwear), and he reverted to his pre-trained, un-naked self. Perhaps I am the one who needs potty training, or at least training in potty training. Until then, shield your daughters’ eyes when you come to my house.