16 of the Grossest Things Parents Have Done In the Name of Potty Training
The world of potty training can be very high pressure (pun intended), which can make parents do things no reasonable person would ever do. But you do them anyway, because a toddler holding in a poop wields more power than the mafia, and you will do anything to make sure that poop lands in the toilet, even if that means bargaining, lying, pleading, or crafting a cake entirely out of poo-shaped Tootsie Rolls. It's the part the potty-training manuals forget to mention: You will sacrifice every shred of dignity you ever had, in a public restroom, and still go back for more, because you love them that much. Here are just a few examples of the depths to which parents have sunk.
"My daughter is terrified of toilets with automatic flushers, to the point where if she even sees one with a sensor (or anything she thinks might be a sensor), she'll flat-out refuse to go. I've tried covering them with Post-It notes and making them little toilet paper hats, but sometimes even those tricks fail. One day in the store, I knew she needed to go and automatic toilets were the only option. So I took her in the stall with me, pulled my pants down, and sat on the toilet. Then I made it flush over and over and over, the whole time yelling, 'See, baby? It's OK! You can sit on the potty while it flushes and nothing happens! Everything is fine. Mommy's bottom is a little wet but nothing bad is happening! See? See??' My butt was soaked and she still wouldn't use it." -Laura M., 34, North Logan, Utah
"I once squatted next to the highway in sub-zero temperatures during a snowstorm, blocking my three-year-old son so he could pee because he swore he couldn't wait another second. We got back in and he said, 'Mommy, my butt has icicles!' and I said 'Mine, too!' because there had been a huge gap between the bottom of my jacket and the top of my pants when I bent over." -Maria Y., 28, New York City
"My son was potty-trained during the day long before he was at night. One night, I was up late watching TV when I heard a noise. I watched my son walk into the kitchen and open the fridge door. Before I could even ask him what he was doing, he'd dropped his jammie bottoms and began to unleash the water hose that's attached to a bladder the size of Texas. I had to clean puddles of urine out of my refrigerator. Nothing like rinsing pee off your produce to make you grateful for soap." -Sara L., 39, Dallas, Texas
"My potty-training son's poop is the size of an elephant's and it's constantly clogging our toilet. I've gotten so tired of plunging that I have resorted to cutting it into pieces with a plastic knife we keep by the toilet before flushing it, to save myself time and energy." -Carlie P., 29, Godfrey, Illinois
"For whatever reason, my three-year-old son had the hardest time pooping. We tried everything we could think of and then took him to the doctor. They decided to run a bunch of tests, including one that needed us to collect a stool sample from him. But it couldn't be contaminated by a diaper or the toilet so we used a clean ice cream bucket that we stored in the outside freezer until we could get it to the lab. That would have been gross enough on its own…until the day my father-in-law got hungry and went looking for a snack. He came back inside holding the ice cream bucket, looking delighted. I've never seen my husband move so fast!" -Jill R., 32, San Antonio, Texas
"My son did not want to potty train, at all. Any time I asked him if he wanted to try, his excuse was always 'Mama, I too little. My baby animals told me so', referring to his much-loved collection of little stuffed animals. So I had to gather all 40 of his 'baby animals' in his room and sit down and explain to them why my son was big enough to potty in the potty. Yes, I was arguing with his imaginary friends. It worked though!" -Amanda T., 39, Atlanta, Georgia
"I tried everything to motivate my daughter to potty train, but she just didn't care. But with another baby on the way, I did! After two weeks of accidents without any success at all, I did one of the shadiest - and possibly most desperate things - I've ever done as a parent. As my daughter sat stone-faced on the toilet, insisting she didn't need to pee while I knew darn well she absolutely did, I grabbed the jar of potty treat M&M's and ate them by the handful in front of her, all the while saying through a mouthful of chocolate, 'Mommy goes pee on the toilet so I GET TO EAT ALL YOUR M&M's.' My daughter, horror all over her face, sobbed out 'OK' and then finally peed! That's all it took. I handed her two M&M's and she peed on the toilet from then on." -Kristen J., 30, American Fork, Utah
"My oldest did fine peeing but he refused to poop in the potty because 'boys don't sit on the potty.' Ugh! So, whenever he had to poop, he would put on one of his younger brother's diapers and poop in it. One day, I told him that if he could put the diaper on himself, he could change it himself, too. After sneaking upstairs and putting on a diaper and pooping in it, he told me to change him. I said nope, handed him some wipes and a garbage can and told him to do it himself. He started screaming that he would get a rash. All I could do was sit behind the kitchen counter and muffle my laughter. He got so mad. But after that, he always pooped in the potty." -Diana W., 34, Bountiful, Utah
"My daughter is three and gets super attached to anything she thinks is hers. So now that she's potty training, she hates flushing her poop down the toilet. She worked so hard to make it! And she thinks it's so pretty! And so we can't just flush it away forever! We compromised by having me take a picture on my camera phone of every poop she does. Then she describes it and gives it a name. ('Rainbow bridge over the mermaid lake' was the last one.) It's my worst nightmare that I'm going to leave my phone somewhere and someone is going to find it and see a whole gallery of bowel movements and think I've got some weird fetish or something." -Nicole R., 36, Atlanta, Georgia
"My four-year-old daughter was outside playing and didn't want to come inside, so she just pooped in a little sand bucket and kept on playing. She eventually brought it to me and I had to have a nice long talk about appropriate places to relieve yourself. I never thought I'd actually have to say 'we don't poop in sand toys' but being a mom makes you say lots of things you never thought you'd have to say." -Amanda S., 33, Denver, Colorado
"My daughter was about two years old and mostly potty-trained, although she would sometimes still have poop accidents. Once, she said she was going to bake a chocolate pie in her play kitchen, but instead of making a pretend pie, she made a - you guessed it - poopie pie. Even after I cleaned it, that toy oven was never the same." -Stacey L., 34, Dickinson, North Dakota
"Potty training and road trips are the worst combination ever. Recently, my five-year-old pooped her pants on a car trip in middle-of-nowhere Wyoming because we couldn't find a gas station. She had to sit in it (in her poop-smeared car seat) for 20 minutes until we found a rest stop. All it had was a toilet and a metal sink. I had to clean off all the caked-on crap using my bare hands. I still want to die, just thinking about it." -Ellen C., 35, Longmont, Colorado
"With four small kids, grocery shopping is already the bane of my existence. But now that I'm potty training my three-year-old it's so much worse. She constantly has accidents in public (at home she's 100 percent fine!), so I always carry spare undies and clothes with me. But one day she went through all the spares and then wet herself again. Exasperated, I took her back to the bathroom, tipped her upside down, and dried her little bum under the hand dryer. I was just about to put her down and start drying her panties when a woman walked in. She took one look, spun around, and walked right back out." -Laura H., 37, Syracuse, New York
"My two-year-old son was potty training and got super constipated. He seemed to be in a lot of pain, so I called the pediatrician. Because it was late, so I got the nurse on call. She told me I could take him to the ER and spend two hours and $200 or I could take a baby spoon - the kind covered in rubber on the end - and gently insert it into the opening of his rectum to stimulate it. I did it. It worked. But the only good thing I can say about it now is at least he was too young to remember it. Probably? I hope?" -Amy B., Los Angeles, California
"I told my son if he could go a whole day with no accidents, I'd make him a treat. But if he could go a whole week then we'd have a party. Well, he made it the whole week with clean pants. He decided he wanted a poop party (of course he did). So I made a chocolate cake covered in brown frosting and Tootsie Roll logs, decorated with brown crepe paper and balloons, and he got a stuffed poop emoji. Worth it." -Jessica S., Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
"When my daughter was potty training, she would sit forever on her little toilet, reading, singing songs, whatever. But she never produced anything! One day, I left her on her plastic potty to go start dinner. All of a sudden, from behind me, I hear 'Mommy, I has supwise for you!' I turn around to see my daughter holding a perfect mound of turd in her hands. She was so excited to show it to me so I tried to be excited, too, as I steered her to the bathroom. I put my hand on the doorknob to open the door and that was when I discovered that every door, light switch, and wall she'd touched on her trip to show me was covered with poop. And now my hand was, too. That was a long day." -Natalie P., 36, Seattle, Washington
You Might Also Like
