Let’s Put on a Show! Making Potty Training Fun

3/3/2008 | by Jen Singer

A friend of mine recently asked how I manage to maintain my sense of humor throughout some of the most trying tasks of parenting, specifically potty training. Her question brought me back to when I was potty training my sons, so I wanted to share a glimpse of how I managed to make potty training fun for my boys throughout the process.

I felt like the stage manager of a vaudeville show. First, I entertained my potty training son while he sat on his potty. There was a toy dump truck demonstration and then a reading from a popular potty book, and finally, a puppet show.
 
He didn’t go in the potty.

An hour (and two wet Pull-Ups® Training Pants) later, I put on another show, this time involving talking stuffed animals and a song, which, fortunately, nobody heard but my toddler and his baby brother.

He didn’t go in the potty.

Another hour (and another wet Pull-Ups® Training Pant) later, there was a much, much shorter show, followed by a presentation of a quirky potty training film, because frankly, I’d run out of material.

He went in the potty.

Hurray! I helped clean him up, affixed his first congratulatory sticker to his shirt and called both sets of grandparents with the fantastic news, as though my child had just made honor roll or won a major swim meet.

I felt a little silly, but I knew that if I didn’t make potty training fun, my not-quite-three year-old son would lose interest in it faster than it takes to flush the toilet. So for a few weeks, I kept up my variety show, until my son had a shirt full of stickers to show off to Daddy at the end of each day.
 
Then slowly, I put away the puppets and the stuffed animals, and sidelined my best acts – and my son’s Pull-Ups® Training Pants – until my younger son started potty training 18 months later. And then, it was time to put on a show again.

Ta-da!