A couple of months before Boodge turned 2, I started thinking about potty training. How does one begin? What does one do? Some of the parents from our prenatal class group were reporting that their little ones were starting to have potty success. Should I be pushing it along more, I wondered? Put the potty in the living room? Sit him on it in the morning? My mommy-mentor happened to come for a visit, so I asked her, "What's the best way to start?"
"The best thing for you to do right now," she replied, "would be to just not think about potty training. Because if you start thinking about it now, you'll be doing it for the next year and a half. And you don't want to do that. If you wait a little while till he's more ready, you'll be doing it for less time."
This was good advice, I felt, that appealed to both my general parenting philosophy and my lazy side. On one hand, I truly do believe that children will naturally move towards the next step of independence when they are ready, if they are provided with a secure environment to try things and some gentle, non-pressuring encouragement and information. And on the other, complementary hand, I'm not inclined to struggle towards change with Boodge much. I've never sleep-trained and I haven't weaned (except for nights). Those things felt right for me but also, whenever I thought I may want to do those things, the thought of the month or two of pain that it would take was enough of a deterrent. I'd rather wait things out if I'm pretty sure they will happen on their own. And I'm pretty sure Boodge will be sleeping through the night and not nursing by the time he goes to university. Maybe even before.
I'm coming to think of this as the wu-wei of parenting. "Wu-wei" is one of the central principles in Taoism, and means "without action", "natural action" or "effortless doing". It sounds better than laziness. It's a practice of understanding when to act, and when not to, so that we can better move with the natural flow of things. A couple of times now, we've been caught by surprise when we've been thinking about "doing" something with Boodge but haven't actually taken any action yet. I'm beginning to think maybe the best thing to do, often, is nothing.
The first time was when we moved and could finally give him his own bedroom. He'd been sharing our bed until then, and I wasn't sure how to approach the transition. We'd set up his bedroom, and told him it would be his one day, but we had a steady stream of guests so I hadn't had a chance to put him in there. Eventually, the guests dwindled, and we started doing his naps in there--he has always done those alone anyway. But how to break it to him that bed sharing with us was over? Turned out, it wasn't necessary. One day, he just said he wanted to sleep in his bedroom, and he really hasn't turned back since then. Wu HOO!.
Potty training is turning out to be much the same. After my friend's advice, I sort of let it go. I had already ordered him a book called "Diapers Are Not Forever" which a friend had found helpful. So we read that a few times. I told him often about the potty, and how he would use it one day when he was ready, and pointed it out to him. I let him watch me go--I mean, what choice did I have anyway? And one day, he just said he wanted to pee in the potty.
Since then, he's been steadily progressing, with some regressing. Over the last 2-3 months, he's gotten to the point where he doesn't pee in his diaper during the day at all, unless he's super-excited and distracted by activity--and even then, he usually makes it to the potty with a few drips on the way. Oh, and there was the other day, when we were running inside to the potty and he got sidetracked by the garden shears. (Don't freak out Mom!) I let him use them under close supervision, and he started cutting flowers off the hydrangea. He was so focused on what he was doing and so not wanting to give up the once-in-his-lifetime that I didn't take those shears away, that he looked at me and said, "I'm gonna pee in my diaper" and then spread 'em and went for it.
For a long time, he didn't poo in the potty though. Then, when my mom was visiting, he did it for the first time. It was aperitif time and Mom was pretty exuberant, and so was I, and eventually Sean and Papa Toad (my step-father, Claude, to us, but to Boodge...) also filed into the bathroom, and we all made such a huge deal about it that he didn't try that again for almost a month.
But during that time, he went a whole week without peeing at night! I thought (naively) we were truly on our way to fully pee-trained. Now this last 2 weeks, he's pooed in the potty for every single poo...but he's peeing at night again, and sometimes in his diaper during nap time. He's also pulling his 2 year old contrarian act sometimes, saying "I need to pee in the potty," and then refusing to let me take off his pants. Yesterday, he did that while wearing underwear, and then peed his pants. I admit, I got in a snit and snapped at him, even though I've heard that shaming or chastising your kids for making a potty mistake is the worst thing you can do. It felt natural--wu wei. Ha ha. But I did regain control and realize that he may have just wanted to see what happens if he pees in his underwear. He didn't seem to like it much. So...wu wei.
I'm just riding it out. Before this week, he often asked me to put his diaper on if he was naked and needed to poo. Instead of trying to convince him to go on the potty, I just did what he asked. Wu-wei. I only put him on the potty when he says he needs to go, or if he's agreeable to going before we go out (which he often isn't, so...wu wei). If he says he needs to poo, but then gets tired of waiting, I let him get down from the potty. Sometimes he runs back in there 5 times until the right moment. That's about knowing when to act and when not to. Besides, the lazy side of me doesn't really want to sit in the bathroom waiting when I could be doing something else.
Now, I'm not suggesting that I'm some sort of Taoist parenting guru. There's lots of examples of times when I try to micro-manage my family and force things into a certain shape. I didn't earn the nickname "micro" from my husband for nothing. But sometimes, the wu-wei matches up to my lazy nature and my preference for doing what feels natural, and it's a win-win. And it's teaching me that maybe I should just let go that way in the rest of my life sometimes, and trust that nature will take the right course with a few strategic actions on my part that go with the flow.
I realize we're lucky with Boodge, he seems to be motivated to make steps forward. Maybe Peanut will be different, or will not be ready until s/he is much older. But we're so happy that what we had heard was a difficult and messy struggle has been, for us, really, really easy. (So far. Knock on wood. Universe, please don't smite me.) So next time you feel yourself forcing something to happen, try the wu-wei. Parenting is just a little bit easier when you can learn to swim with the current.
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