Speaker 1: Welcome to Katie's Crib, a production of Shonda land Audio
Speaker 1: in partnership with I Heart Radio. You guys, welcome back
Speaker 1: to Katie's Crib. I'm Katie Lowe's. On this episode, we
Speaker 1: are discussing what I have been very busy during quarantine doing,
Speaker 1: which is working with someone I feel like I've known
Speaker 1: for a hundred years on potty training. Her name is
Speaker 1: Jamie GLOWACKI. She's like the guru of potty training. Her
Speaker 1: book is The Bible of potty Training. I was hearing
Speaker 1: about it for years before I even entertained the idea
Speaker 1: of actually reading it or potty training my son myself.
Speaker 1: So she is an expert on this big deal transition.
Speaker 1: She is the author of the books Oh Crap Potty
Speaker 1: Training and Oh Crap I have a toddler. I feel
Speaker 1: so close to both of those titles, and I say
Speaker 1: crap all the time. So I love it. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us, Jamie, and my son is
Speaker 1: successfully potty train. So I was like, we gotta get
Speaker 1: you on Katie's Crib because I know everyone I know
Speaker 1: was like, what are you doing in quarantine? We should
Speaker 1: potty train. We're never going to have this much time,
Speaker 1: close to this many potties. Sure, so the whole world
Speaker 1: potty train during quarantine. Tell me how you got into
Speaker 1: this work? Oh my god, I'll give you the reader's
Speaker 1: digest version, since I really did not want to be
Speaker 1: a potty trainer when I grew up. Um, that wasn't
Speaker 1: my great dream. Um. I was a social worker in
Speaker 1: San Francisco. I worked with dual diagnosed moms, which meant
Speaker 1: they have mental illness and a substance abuse. And I
Speaker 1: started noticing this trend of keeping babies well, keeping toddlers
Speaker 1: in diapers to like four or five. And I was like,
Speaker 1: this is wrong. And these moms were not you know,
Speaker 1: they were on state assistance. They needed money. They didn't
Speaker 1: need to be spending money on diapers at four or
Speaker 1: five years old. I was not a mom. I did
Speaker 1: not know this was a hot button, and parenting it
Speaker 1: was just part of my job. So I started interviewing moms.
Speaker 1: My mom's age, so to give you a reference, I'm
Speaker 1: fifty two, my mom's seventy three. So as it didn't
Speaker 1: try to give you all the reference, you look fucking amazing. Wow,
Speaker 1: if talking about duty all day makes you look like that,
Speaker 1: sign me up. Okay, keep going. I think it's the
Speaker 1: amount I swear in my work. Yeah, that's great. Great. Um.
Speaker 1: And so you know, definitely a theme emerged and I, um,
Speaker 1: I weeded out sort of their abusive practices. There were
Speaker 1: some back in the day, and I started teaching these
Speaker 1: moms how to potty chain. I didn't think anything of it.
Speaker 1: And then fast forward a few years and I had
Speaker 1: my son. I moved to Rhode Island and he was
Speaker 1: about twenty two months when I told, you know, you
Speaker 1: have your circle of mom friends and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: you guys, I'm out. I got a potty train. And
Speaker 1: I was met with this like wall of you can't
Speaker 1: potty train. You can't potty train a boy at twenty
Speaker 1: two months, That's impossible. And I was like, you guys
Speaker 1: are all stoned. This is when you potty trained. So
Speaker 1: you know, we took our week and um, he potty
Speaker 1: trained and he was like famous. I'd go into Whole
Speaker 1: Foods and people would be like, is that the baby
Speaker 1: that's potty trained? Like, holy ship, he's not a baby
Speaker 1: and so UM. At the time, I owned a secondhand
Speaker 1: children's store and I had a back room with like
Speaker 1: baby yoga and music together and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And so I started holding classes and they started selling out,
Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, wait a minute, people really
Speaker 1: need this information. So then I wrote it down. It
Speaker 1: was a crappy book. It was like a hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty pages. It was the bare bones of what it
Speaker 1: is now. I put it on the worst website known
Speaker 1: to man. I made the website and they didn't know
Speaker 1: how to cut and paste, so that just like that
Speaker 1: gives you bad it was, and so I just thought
Speaker 1: I'd sell a few copies here and there for the
Speaker 1: people who couldn't make my class. But then pediatrician started
Speaker 1: to call and they were like, this is great. Can
Speaker 1: we print this out for our waiting room? And then
Speaker 1: people started to call me, like the woman who heads
Speaker 1: up the Autistic Society of America called me, and we
Speaker 1: worked with her five year old and got her potty trained,
Speaker 1: and then quadruplets and all these various you know, interesting
Speaker 1: cases and uh, and I really literally literally was not
Speaker 1: selling clothes anymore. So the book for a while was
Speaker 1: forty dollars. But it came remember when four him swear
Speaker 1: the thing like you go forum, So I had a forum,
Speaker 1: and what it was was unbelievable research because remember I
Speaker 1: had gotten my information from the generation before, the generation
Speaker 1: that didn't have Facebook, didn't have an identity, didn't work,
Speaker 1: Dad came home at five, Like there was no programming,
Speaker 1: no marketing for kids. So it's a whole different generation.
Speaker 1: But now I got to work with modern moms and
Speaker 1: dads and daycares and all the problems that confront us
Speaker 1: as modern parents. And so it's unbelievable experience. And then
Speaker 1: it went through all these other iterations that finally it
Speaker 1: became what it is today. This is the book, Like,
Speaker 1: this is the book. Like everyone I've talked to, all moms,
Speaker 1: you know, like my super super super hippie moms, my
Speaker 1: super super super discipline strict polite moms, my super monessory moms,
Speaker 1: like every style of mom that I have in my
Speaker 1: life all have this book in common. That's awesome, which
Speaker 1: speaks volumes because there's just so much to be taken
Speaker 1: from it. First off, how do you know when a
Speaker 1: kid is ready to potty train? This is very a
Speaker 1: triggering question because this is the only thing I come
Speaker 1: up against a lot. This is a huge question. This
Speaker 1: is because it's like everyone doesn't want to push their
Speaker 1: kid or whatever it is. And I know you gotta
Speaker 1: lot to say this like jump chomping at the boat. Okay,
Speaker 1: first of all, let me can I just say very plainly,
Speaker 1: psychological damage is never done by potty training. If you
Speaker 1: beat your child because they have an accident, yes you
Speaker 1: will be doing psychological damage. But this whole I don't
Speaker 1: want to do psychological damage. You guys, it's freaking p
Speaker 1: and poop in a container. That's it. Don't make it
Speaker 1: more than it is. Um. I don't know where this
Speaker 1: came from, but I can guarantee as a social worker,
Speaker 1: I worked with the most mentally disturbed people on the
Speaker 1: planet and not one ever sited potty training is an issue.
Speaker 1: So I'm so sure if you're reading a potty training book,
Speaker 1: you're in the upper echelon of parenting just by that nature,
Speaker 1: so you can't cause psychological damage. The whole idea of
Speaker 1: not pushing a kid is absurd, especially in our freaking
Speaker 1: race to the top educational system. So if you're doing
Speaker 1: a worksheet with your kid, or plan on doing a
Speaker 1: worksheet with your kid, like during quarantine, you were pushing them. Sorry,
Speaker 1: you were pushing them. You didn't let them just play
Speaker 1: with the Yeah, so like we push our kids, of
Speaker 1: course we do, and why don't we push them? We
Speaker 1: push them because there are age appropriate activities. You didn't
Speaker 1: push your kid to walk. I'm sure you started to
Speaker 1: see them start to cruise along furniture, you know, stand
Speaker 1: their little wobbly legs up right, But you you took
Speaker 1: the cue and you're like, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: see what happens. Right, And then did you hold their
Speaker 1: little chubby hands with one finger, walking very slowly, hunched over? Sure,
Speaker 1: now you knew somewhere in the nine to twelve month
Speaker 1: range your kids should start to cruise. Now, you might
Speaker 1: let it go till sixteen months, but I can guarantee
Speaker 1: at sixteen months you're gonna be like, oh, my kids
Speaker 1: not doing anything. Maybe I should move this along. Maybe
Speaker 1: I should go, you know, see somebody. Maybe I should
Speaker 1: test their their legs right, Maybe I should buy them
Speaker 1: a push toy? What can I do to support walking?
Speaker 1: So the same thing goes with pott each ending. The
Speaker 1: thing about it is the whole wait till they're ready, Well,
Speaker 1: wait till they're ready. As a whole another all of
Speaker 1: wax that I hate, but knowing when they're ready. The
Speaker 1: problem is most parents miss the cues. They're very subtle.
Speaker 1: They're around eighteen to twenty four months, and it's literally,
Speaker 1: your kid wants to be in the bathroom with you.
Speaker 1: Your kid pushes your butt cheeks aside when you're sitting
Speaker 1: because they want to see where what's coming out? Right,
Speaker 1: They're interested in the toilet paper, they want to flush.
Speaker 1: That's it, you guys. That's it. So when parents say
Speaker 1: to me, oh, I'm gonna wait till he's reading, and
Speaker 1: I go, great, what does that look like? And I
Speaker 1: get a blank stare that says, oh crap, which is
Speaker 1: why the books titled that. So I think parents expect
Speaker 1: that child's going to take the diaper off, say they
Speaker 1: have to pee, and it just doesn't happen that way.
Speaker 1: I think it's also so big for parents just because,
Speaker 1: like what I read in your book is it's the
Speaker 1: first major thing that is taught. Walking. They mimic, they
Speaker 1: model they do eating sort of similarly, crawling, similarly. Talking.
Speaker 1: Potty training was the first thing I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to consciously chew who's this? I have to
Speaker 1: actually teach him a skill set for the first time
Speaker 1: in my life and his life, right right, right. And
Speaker 1: what I always say is what if you suck? That's
Speaker 1: what parents want to avoid. People say, well, I just
Speaker 1: I can't be bothered. No, no, no, what if you
Speaker 1: suck at it? That's why people delay it. And it's
Speaker 1: it's a hidden thing that we all have, is like
Speaker 1: what if I am really bad at this? What if
Speaker 1: I'm a really bad parent? Which we all go through, right,
Speaker 1: We're all like, oh ship, what if what am I doing?
Speaker 1: But I think that's the that's the real core issue.
Speaker 1: So there's really it's like it's early, like it's much
Speaker 1: earlier than people. I mean, look, guys, I read the
Speaker 1: first chapter of your book and I was fucking horrified
Speaker 1: because I had already hit the thirty month mark. And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, crap, oh crap. He's has a
Speaker 1: personality and he says no all the time and he's
Speaker 1: completely rebellious. This is cultural norms, Katie too. So I
Speaker 1: okay again fifty two for reference, I was so late
Speaker 1: in potty training that my mom was embarrassed to leave
Speaker 1: the house with me. Now, remember it was cloud diapers,
Speaker 1: so it was really obvious when a kid was wearing
Speaker 1: a diaper. I was twenty four months. So that just
Speaker 1: is to show you the difference in generations. And I
Speaker 1: don't blame the parents. I blame the disposable diaper companies.
Speaker 1: You know, there's big farmer, there's big diaper. It's been
Speaker 1: so refreshing to not go through diapers anymore. I just
Speaker 1: feel better about my choices, to be honest, and I
Speaker 1: do repat that I didn't do it earlier. Well, it
Speaker 1: sets off this autonomy too. That's so great. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure albody's doing all this like me, me, me,
Speaker 1: do it mean do no? No? You like myself by myself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's so cool. Um the other things. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to mention that because the signs of readiness quote
Speaker 1: unquote are so subtle. I always say between twenty and
Speaker 1: thirty months is perfect, right, And the biggest issue you
Speaker 1: guys is you can certainly potty train before twenty months.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a longer learning curve, but you
Speaker 1: don't you don't get any attitude. The kid just takes
Speaker 1: a little longer to connect the dots. After thirty six months,
Speaker 1: your kid goes through a psychological process called individual ation,
Speaker 1: which means they begin to realize they're a separate person
Speaker 1: from you. Before that, they think when they bunk their head,
Speaker 1: they think you feel the pain there in mention you.
Speaker 1: At three, they start to go no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm separate. Guess what. It's the age of free will
Speaker 1: and choice. And if you're going to add p and
Speaker 1: poop on top of that, that is the literally the
Speaker 1: only thing your child will ever fully control in their lives. Like,
Speaker 1: kids get three is ridiculous, And I don't know who
Speaker 1: I'm looking at right now, the devil I was taking
Speaker 1: over our child? Where did he go? Katie? I've been
Speaker 1: teaching parenting most of my life, right, and so I
Speaker 1: was like, where are the terrible tools? Where did this
Speaker 1: come from? I comparent with my eyes closed, popping on
Speaker 1: one foot, and the day my son turned three, I cried.
Speaker 1: It was like, my whole parenting toolbox is empty. So yeah,
Speaker 1: So all I tell people is I don't really give
Speaker 1: a ratsass when you potty train. I have no investment whatsoever.
Speaker 1: I don't care if you kid goes to college and diaper's.
Speaker 1: Just know that every month that goes by you are
Speaker 1: cementing a different habit. Diaper wearing is a habit, that's it.
Speaker 1: So when I get you know, I get four and
Speaker 1: five year olds whose parents and doctors said wait till
Speaker 1: they're ready. Well, now they're not ready and they're going
Speaker 1: into kindergarten. You know, have a five year habit that's
Speaker 1: really hard to break when you do it at two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but two year habits. So it's totally cool if you
Speaker 1: want to, quote unquote wait till they're ready, but know
Speaker 1: what you're waiting for. And of the time, I say,
Speaker 1: it's cool if you're not ready, but just own up
Speaker 1: to that. Own up to that. I was not ready,
Speaker 1: and I was not ready. I was horrified. I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm going to judge myself so harshly the first
Speaker 1: time he takes a dump on the floor. I'm such
Speaker 1: a type a overachiever and I just wasn't psyched. But
Speaker 1: you guys, it was fine. Well wait, not only that,
Speaker 1: but but this is it. When you have a parenting lesson.
Speaker 1: The universe gave you coronavirus to make you potty train
Speaker 1: your kids, so we can blame it all on you. True.
Speaker 1: I also want to point out in your book that
Speaker 1: it's a lot about mindset. You recommend read the book
Speaker 1: wait two weeks and if you give too much of
Speaker 1: a ship, you're in big trouble, right, Like you have
Speaker 1: to be so chill about accidents or whatever you want
Speaker 1: to call them in your household, or good day or
Speaker 1: bad day, or if phase one took longer than three
Speaker 1: days or phase two took, like you just have to
Speaker 1: practice parenting in a way of like, don't judge this
Speaker 1: by the days or the hours or how long it took,
Speaker 1: because as soon as the kids smells that you care,
Speaker 1: it's over. That's for sure. That's for sure. But also
Speaker 1: like if you have that anxiety. So it's so interesting
Speaker 1: with pandemic potty training because yeah, it was a great
Speaker 1: opportunity since we weren't going anywhere, but there was also
Speaker 1: this collective anxiety. So I had more kids withholding than
Speaker 1: ever before. First of all, this is not a measurement
Speaker 1: of your parenting. It is not a measurement of your parenting.
Speaker 1: Second of all, get off the emotional roller coaster. If
Speaker 1: your kids p and poop can give you a high
Speaker 1: and a low, like wait till they're teenagers? Um, And yeah,
Speaker 1: I just think that you don't have to make it
Speaker 1: this big thing. And the more chill you are, the
Speaker 1: more chill your kid can be. If you're anxious, the
Speaker 1: kids just gonna pick up on it. And if you
Speaker 1: think about it, your average three year old literally has
Speaker 1: the same brain as a dog. Yeah, obviously our kids
Speaker 1: blow through that very quickly, but think of how you
Speaker 1: speak to a dog, and think about like, if you
Speaker 1: have any pets, all their non verbal communication. Your animals
Speaker 1: know when you're going on vacation before you even pull
Speaker 1: out a suitcase, right, Like, they're so attuned to it,
Speaker 1: and so are our little ones. They don't speak, they
Speaker 1: don't have command of the full language yet, so they
Speaker 1: have to be so in tuned with our nonverbal communication.
Speaker 1: I call it vibe. You know, if you're just a mess,
Speaker 1: your kid's gonna be a mess too, because you guys
Speaker 1: are in charge. If you're not in charge, your little ones, like,
Speaker 1: holy sh it, the one in charge doesn't know what
Speaker 1: she's doing. Okay, never mind, I'm not doing this right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are all these articles and blogs out there that
Speaker 1: teach you to how to potty train in three days?
Speaker 1: Is that really possible? So that came out of when
Speaker 1: parents didn't have a life. Like, I'm not kidding you,
Speaker 1: my mom did not have a life. It's like when
Speaker 1: we go to the beach with your kid, you gotta
Speaker 1: cut all the organic that she does. You gotta about
Speaker 1: sun sweet. My mom literally threw us in a freaking
Speaker 1: station wagon with kool aid and below no seatbelts. You
Speaker 1: think they just didn't have to worry about things, and
Speaker 1: and the mom stayed home. So three days we'll get
Speaker 1: you over the hump. But what I found, my original
Speaker 1: version was three days, but I found parents being so
Speaker 1: tied to the three days that parents would take one
Speaker 1: day off of work or do it over a holiday
Speaker 1: weekend and be like three days went buying, nothing's happening,
Speaker 1: you know. And I'm like, whoa. We got to remove
Speaker 1: the pressure because think about it, you guys, there's no
Speaker 1: other milestone that you put this kind of pressure on.
Speaker 1: Like you didn't say my neighbor's kid walked, they better
Speaker 1: walk in three days? Oh my god? Yeah, And um,
Speaker 1: same thing. Look like your kids not gonna read like
Speaker 1: your neighbor. Your kid's not going to ride a bike
Speaker 1: like your neighbor. You can't look at your cousin, your
Speaker 1: your neighbor your friends and say, well they did it.
Speaker 1: And the other thing I know, Katie, is everybody pays
Speaker 1: their due. So your kid might struggle with potty training,
Speaker 1: but you might get a dream for a teenager. Like,
Speaker 1: we all pay our due somewhere, So don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: If you're if you're having a shit, you go at
Speaker 1: potty training, you'll coast somewhere else. I probably, Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: I feel the same way about labor and pregnancy. I'm
Speaker 1: always like I had a dope labor. My labor was
Speaker 1: so easy. I've had hard workout classes and breastfeeding almost
Speaker 1: killed me. I lost the nipple. It was awful. I
Speaker 1: love that you brought that up. Walk me through. I
Speaker 1: think your book is at three phases. There's six six
Speaker 1: most the most important is that the first three that's
Speaker 1: the bulk of the work, and then and the first
Speaker 1: three just walk us through, like really casually, like what's
Speaker 1: the style of this? So let me let me just
Speaker 1: be really quick here. There you guys stopped looking for
Speaker 1: how to potty train, you take a diaper off period.
Speaker 1: What happens next is what's scaring the heck out of you? Okay,
Speaker 1: so don't go looking for some miraculous nest and people go,
Speaker 1: I follow your method. I don't have a method. I
Speaker 1: have a philosophy, which is respect your child. That's it
Speaker 1: ripped the band aid off because like you know, this
Speaker 1: with a binky, with a security blanket, your child's been
Speaker 1: in a diaper since before their first feeding. This is
Speaker 1: the ultimate insecurity blanket. You can't use it sometimes you can't.
Speaker 1: Now that being said, um, like I said when the
Speaker 1: very first iteration was sort of three days, but I
Speaker 1: had to change that. It really is like think of
Speaker 1: your kid building a tower of blocks, and so I
Speaker 1: wanted to give quantifiable data so you would know when
Speaker 1: to move on and also how to know when you're
Speaker 1: experiencing trouble. So if you're on block three and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden it goes all weird, go back to
Speaker 1: block to go back to the last place you were
Speaker 1: really successful. And so that way it got really more manageable,
Speaker 1: especially with our like more data focus parents. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like I need facts. I need you know, you
Speaker 1: can't tell people well, we all have a feeling because
Speaker 1: parents today don't like that. They want the facts. They
Speaker 1: want to know. Yeah, so block one is your average naked.
Speaker 1: You gotta be naked. The kid's gotta be naked from
Speaker 1: the bottom down, because I would love in a perfect
Speaker 1: world than dad's dads, especially because they're such linear thinkers
Speaker 1: and go like, well, I told them to pay, but
Speaker 1: he didn't. I'm like, yeah, like I wish we could
Speaker 1: just tell them to pay, but it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1: It's causing effects. So you've got to kind of catch
Speaker 1: the midpee and get them to the potty or get
Speaker 1: the potty to them. Now you know, I'll have parents.
Speaker 1: I actually had somebody email me that that she was
Speaker 1: not going to treat her child like an animal and
Speaker 1: keep him naked, and I was like, I thought, all
Speaker 1: kids like to be naked, but they have to be
Speaker 1: naked because if they have pants on, they're gonna wet
Speaker 1: the pants. By the time you see the wetness, their
Speaker 1: bladder is empty and you have lost the learning opportunity. Um,
Speaker 1: so that's the first block. And so do you want
Speaker 1: them to peer poop with prompting or without? So that's you.
Speaker 1: You leading the show by saying, hey, you're dancing on
Speaker 1: your tiptoes. Here, let's sit down, or oh, here comes
Speaker 1: the pea that's really important because one of the things
Speaker 1: that screws people up when they just kind of fly
Speaker 1: solo without a plan is they expect the child to
Speaker 1: tell them like within hours, and that doesn't happen right away.
Speaker 1: The next block is commando, So you wanna you gotta
Speaker 1: get clothes on your kid because most kids actually potty
Speaker 1: train naked pretty effortlessly. So then the big trick is
Speaker 1: getting close on and that's a big trick for some
Speaker 1: kids in general. Um, you want to not have underpants
Speaker 1: because if you think about it, where underpants elastic size
Speaker 1: at the top of the thigh and around the waist,
Speaker 1: just like a diaper. Your child has a two three
Speaker 1: year memory muscle memory that when this thing goes on,
Speaker 1: they can release. So the best thing you can do
Speaker 1: to try to mitigate any any potential accidents is to
Speaker 1: keep the underpants off for now and so they can
Speaker 1: go commando. And really, at this age, people say, you know,
Speaker 1: aren't you worried about like bacteria or things like that
Speaker 1: and your kids getting so gross by midday? Chances are
Speaker 1: you're changing their pants twice a day at least. My god,
Speaker 1: we're in like four outfits a day. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: would you know, I would say, be cautious. You want
Speaker 1: loose fitting sweatpants. You want to be cautious. You know
Speaker 1: how some pants have like a thick seam that will
Speaker 1: irritate their genital so you know, you just want nice,
Speaker 1: smooth and also means that are easy to come on
Speaker 1: or off. Like this is not the time to be
Speaker 1: in these adorable onesies and like, oh you're all done.
Speaker 1: You're done with onesies, footie, pgs, overalls. My son was
Speaker 1: in like umbro shorts for like a week. Like I
Speaker 1: was like that word sizes too big, Hand me down
Speaker 1: so that the waist came down one second. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I will get people on social media being like no,
Speaker 1: I'm not ready to give up the cute outfits, and
Speaker 1: I'm like cool, So you're making a conscious choice to
Speaker 1: keep your kid wedding themselves, do you know? So? I
Speaker 1: feel very strongly about respecting our kids and where they
Speaker 1: need to be developmentally, So so do away with the
Speaker 1: cute office? Yes? So then I do commando and then
Speaker 1: the clothing and underwear. No no, no, the next one
Speaker 1: is outing, so you go out skip it because we
Speaker 1: didn't have any outing. I did something I did practice
Speaker 1: it was kind of nice like quarantine. I was like,
Speaker 1: we're gonna like, we're gonna do a walk around the block,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna practice. Like I'm gonna say, do you
Speaker 1: want to go partty before the walk, not forcing him.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he would say yes. Sometimes he would say no,
Speaker 1: like you know, and I would just trust him. If
Speaker 1: he's got to go, he's got to go, and he'll
Speaker 1: tell me. And if he has an accident and we're
Speaker 1: out on a walk, who fucking cares. We'll be back
Speaker 1: in ten minutes, you know, absolutely, And I did have
Speaker 1: a couple once they approached this like a Navy seal team.
Speaker 1: They were so amazing that dad took the little girl
Speaker 1: out all weekend long. He went to Target, to the library,
Speaker 1: a to um home depot, like all these public restrooms,
Speaker 1: and she was a pro by the end of the weekend.
Speaker 1: So that's something that you can do. The fourth block
Speaker 1: is Andy's, so then you would try Andy's. But that
Speaker 1: so the reason I think heat you're getting confuses because
Speaker 1: the three blocks are really concentrated. That's the bulk of
Speaker 1: potty training. Then Andy's could be even six months out.
Speaker 1: And my advice is try them. If the kid wets
Speaker 1: them right off the bat, just take them off again.
Speaker 1: The fifth block, you, guys, is self initiation. Six to
Speaker 1: eight weeks after your start date is when your child
Speaker 1: will start to initiate. In the early days, you may
Speaker 1: get your child going, oh, I have to pee or
Speaker 1: running to the putty themselves, and that's great, but they're
Speaker 1: not trustworthy yet. So don't think like, oh, whoa, I
Speaker 1: got a genius. We're all set, because you're not. That's
Speaker 1: so true. That happened in my case. Albi just nailed
Speaker 1: being naked in two days. He took dump on the potty,
Speaker 1: he peered a bunch of times because I was pushing liquids.
Speaker 1: It was great. So I put him in the shorts
Speaker 1: and then he was just accidents all day. We did
Speaker 1: a few more days naked so that it was really solidified,
Speaker 1: and then we moved on UM. And then the last
Speaker 1: phase is the night training nap training situation, because we're
Speaker 1: still in diapers at night and at the nap and
Speaker 1: that's just because I don't I'm not ready to give
Speaker 1: up my sleep, although I know it's coming. Well. You
Speaker 1: and I specifically talked about this though, because then you
Speaker 1: have a situation and I'm sure there's many many moms.
Speaker 1: If you're pregnant with your second you want to wait,
Speaker 1: just wait, because you're gonna be up all night with
Speaker 1: feedings anyway, so why bother. And it gives the it'll
Speaker 1: it's just a really nice segue to night training. Do
Speaker 1: you recommend doing the whole shebang from the top, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you do, I do. I do. It's a more
Speaker 1: holacious first week, So I don't advise it if like
Speaker 1: both parents work outside the home. Um, but with all
Speaker 1: diapers gone, you have a much higher success right early on. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, for the majority of kids, they're gonna daytime
Speaker 1: train just fine, be in their night it's just kind
Speaker 1: of textbook. But for some kids, they start holding it
Speaker 1: for those diapers and then you run into trouble. So
Speaker 1: then we have to, you know, force it a little bit.
Speaker 1: But it can it can happen. I have a night
Speaker 1: training supplement. I discounted all my courses for covid um.
Speaker 1: It's ten dollars. Just go pick it up because it's
Speaker 1: really it's way too much information that I could give here.
Speaker 1: Oh great a training supplement. Amazing even if your kids
Speaker 1: like potty trained and you didn't use my book. You
Speaker 1: you don't need to prior prior Jamie knowledge question for you,
Speaker 1: do you prefer a kitty potty versus like one of
Speaker 1: those inserts on an adult potty? Go and get a
Speaker 1: potty for every room in your house? You guys, okay,
Speaker 1: When they first start, you got about a three seconds
Speaker 1: heads up of like either seeing their signs, their p dance,
Speaker 1: or you know them saying I gotta go. When they
Speaker 1: If it's day three and you've got a lucky situation
Speaker 1: where the kid goes, I gotta pay, you literally have
Speaker 1: two seconds to get them somewhere or to get the
Speaker 1: potty to them. So I have no problem with the
Speaker 1: little potties. The other thing is that Foster's autonomy recognize
Speaker 1: that if you're using the toilet, you are tied to
Speaker 1: this process. Think of it. You've got a two or
Speaker 1: three year old. How are they going to manage a
Speaker 1: step stool, turning around, pulling down their pants to sit
Speaker 1: on the porcelain toilet, and the really hard tiled room.
Speaker 1: So you're going to be locked into helping them a
Speaker 1: lot longer than if you have the little potty. Can
Speaker 1: you talk to me about the language you use? I
Speaker 1: feel like the language you describe in the book is
Speaker 1: so helpful because it's positive. But you know, if there's
Speaker 1: accidents that happen, I kind of had to be careful
Speaker 1: of like it's okay, it's okay, you know, like reinforcing
Speaker 1: that an accident it is an okay thing because it's
Speaker 1: not perfect. Yeah, you don't want to say it's okay. Um.
Speaker 1: Second of all, did you notice how you have a
Speaker 1: voice went up about three octaves? Yeah, So you gotta
Speaker 1: watch your pitch. And sometimes I'll work with parents and
Speaker 1: just do you hear me, do you I'm adding breath.
Speaker 1: I'm just adding breath to my voice to keep it low.
Speaker 1: Dads tend to be very successful because they have a
Speaker 1: lower pitch. They just do a fist bump and they're
Speaker 1: like right on and the kids like beaming with pride.
Speaker 1: So and remind me to talk about boys and that
Speaker 1: boys being herded to train. Um. So, yeah, what I
Speaker 1: see is in the first couple of weeks, they're not accidents.
Speaker 1: They're learning tools. You know, your kids just learning as
Speaker 1: you get along. You know, further on in the process, Well,
Speaker 1: you want to look for is reasons why it happened,
Speaker 1: Like oh, shit. I knew they had to go, and
Speaker 1: I thought I would run one more errand and it
Speaker 1: was my fault. Or you know, we're at a party
Speaker 1: and out of corner of my eye, I could see
Speaker 1: him dancing around, and I just kind of let it go.
Speaker 1: So you want a reason, it's only when you you know,
Speaker 1: you're four or five weeks into this and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden something happened, You're like, I don't even know.
Speaker 1: He seems surprised, and we have to look at potential problems. Um,
Speaker 1: language is so important. I'm really old school news school, Like, again,
Speaker 1: we want to respect the child, but you guys are
Speaker 1: the parents, You're the ones in controls are Being in
Speaker 1: control is an emotional swaddling. So when you swaddle a newborn,
Speaker 1: why do you swaddle them so they don't flail and
Speaker 1: hit themselves? Right, So if you're floundering, if you're not
Speaker 1: firm with your child, it come it's time to pe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're like, um, why don't do you have to
Speaker 1: go to the bathroom? Dude? You wreak of fear and
Speaker 1: they're gonna eat you like a piranha. Like it's just
Speaker 1: gonna be ugly, So be very you know, be firm
Speaker 1: nowhere you're going with the plan, And that language ties
Speaker 1: into prompting. Never ever ever asked a toddler if they
Speaker 1: have to go pee. The answer will always be no,
Speaker 1: And then you'll be in a struggle. You'll be in
Speaker 1: a power struggle because you know he's gotta pay. He
Speaker 1: just said no, and now you're screwed. So you want
Speaker 1: to prompt with a choice, a statement, or a challenge.
Speaker 1: And people always underestimate the challenge. And Katie, if I
Speaker 1: had a dime for every parent who got on the
Speaker 1: phone with me and said, you don't understand how stubborn
Speaker 1: my kid is. I have a news flash. Your child
Speaker 1: isn't special. It's the age. So a challenge. Um, I'll
Speaker 1: race you to the potty. I bet you can't fill
Speaker 1: that cup. Um, you know you want to challenge them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a whole group of friends who's like that.
Speaker 1: The dad was like, oh, you gotta go, I gotta go.
Speaker 1: I gotta go really bad. You gotta go really bad,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like it was like a
Speaker 1: hole and that really worked with that kid. Like yeah,
Speaker 1: and then um, you could do a choice. You know,
Speaker 1: do you want to go first? Or second, do you
Speaker 1: want the big potty the little potty? Do you want
Speaker 1: daddy to go first? That kind of thing, and a
Speaker 1: statement it's time to pay. Yeah, so you just gotta
Speaker 1: get off of the d You gotta go, Do you
Speaker 1: gotta go? You gotta go? Yeah? I'm wait, what were
Speaker 1: you going to say quick about boys and girls? Oh,
Speaker 1: boys are not hard to train their girls. They're easier
Speaker 1: because you can pee them anywhere. So don't that's such
Speaker 1: a huge myth. And I research and research and research,
Speaker 1: and I actually found it in brain development. Um men's
Speaker 1: limbic systems are fift smaller than women. They are linear thinkers,
Speaker 1: we are social thinkers. We are tan gentile thinkers. We
Speaker 1: use too many words. So it's largely females are potty
Speaker 1: training boys. So it's not that they're harder to train.
Speaker 1: It's that it's the mena from Mars, women are from Venus.
Speaker 1: It's just we we talked to we're not communicating this.
Speaker 1: Ask your man, Ask your son. And when I asked
Speaker 1: my son, Pascal said, Pascal, do I talk too much?
Speaker 1: He said, you say so many words, I can't even
Speaker 1: begin to track them. And I was like, really, like
Speaker 1: your whole life and he's like yes, And you also
Speaker 1: talk too fast, so I call it shaving language. So
Speaker 1: boys think of dog training legit like sit, p stop
Speaker 1: with your chatter. Stop with you're like like we're chattering monkeys.
Speaker 1: And even with your spouse, like honey, do I talk
Speaker 1: too much? And your your man's gonna go yes, down.
Speaker 1: What's the language when there is an accident, which I
Speaker 1: really liked to believe it was something like oh you
Speaker 1: know that goes in the potty next time or something
Speaker 1: like that, right, yeah, And it all depends on what
Speaker 1: where where you're at. So again, if you're in like
Speaker 1: the first week or two, definitely like pe goes in
Speaker 1: the potty when you have when you have the feeling
Speaker 1: to go pee, okay, because it's not like, uh, did
Speaker 1: you ever see the old Parenthood movie with Steve Martin?
Speaker 1: Of course? Yeah, okay, So there's the opening scene right
Speaker 1: where the little girl goes. He goes to, honey, do
Speaker 1: you have to be sick? And she goes yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the same thing like do you have to pee? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Boom they pay. So when you have the feeling to
Speaker 1: go pee is when they need to, you know, motivate
Speaker 1: to the to the party. What do you think about
Speaker 1: dump dump, dumb rewards, dummy the whole Like you pe,
Speaker 1: you get an M and M. Okay, So here's my
Speaker 1: view on rewards. And I know that a large amount
Speaker 1: of people potty chain with like using an eminem. That's
Speaker 1: great if it works. What nobody brags about on Facebook
Speaker 1: is that I see people who end up in family
Speaker 1: therapy because of rewards that have escalated beyond control. Literally,
Speaker 1: and I'm not kidding, this happens so often. I get
Speaker 1: people who have poop problems who have promised a trip
Speaker 1: to Disney for a singular poop in the potty. So
Speaker 1: that's how bad it can get out of control. And
Speaker 1: what happens is it becomes about a power struggle with
Speaker 1: the rewards. And of course nobody brags about this because
Speaker 1: it's a nightmare. So it does happen. Bribery is not
Speaker 1: positive reinforcement. Okay, it's not the same, so don't make
Speaker 1: it the same. I think candy in the morning is
Speaker 1: a little ridiculous. I think that at two or three
Speaker 1: years old, paying your child to do socialized behavior is
Speaker 1: a slippery slope. It's if you're going to be the
Speaker 1: kind of parent who pays your kids to set the table,
Speaker 1: pays your kids to get a's great stardom off at two.
Speaker 1: I think that parenting style sucks, and I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: hide behind that. So there are there's expected behavior from
Speaker 1: our kids that they shouldn't be rewarded, and we know
Speaker 1: we have an epidemic of entitled kids. So it starts.
Speaker 1: It starts with this. You guys, like, you don't reward
Speaker 1: your kid for sleeping through the night. You might want to,
Speaker 1: but you don't. And the more you'll make it special,
Speaker 1: the more it takes it out of the realm of
Speaker 1: normalized behavior. That being said, though, I will sometimes use
Speaker 1: it as a tool when I'm working privately with a
Speaker 1: client and we just can't ascertain, like is there a
Speaker 1: glitchen learning or is this kid just being a little
Speaker 1: dick and a kid who can do it for an
Speaker 1: eminem is being a little dick, So then we know.
Speaker 1: Then we know, Okay, now we just got to like
Speaker 1: shore up the boundaries around it. Do you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying? Yes? What about um? Do you see a
Speaker 1: lot of kids regress when big things happen in life?
Speaker 1: I never see a full regression so you have to
Speaker 1: remember that you can't unlearn something. There's always behavior behind
Speaker 1: a regression. Okay, So, and if you've read O Crap
Speaker 1: I have a tyler, My whole stick in that book
Speaker 1: is that behavior is a symptom of a larger disease.
Speaker 1: If your kid is acting out, if your kid is
Speaker 1: being a twig, if your kids suddenly starts having essence,
Speaker 1: that is not the problem. The problem is or neath
Speaker 1: figure out that. Okay, so very very common, mom has
Speaker 1: a second baby, the kid regresses. Number one, it's always
Speaker 1: better to potty chain prior to having the second baby
Speaker 1: because the regression, it's easier to get back on the
Speaker 1: rails than it is to start fresh. I have bad
Speaker 1: news for You're not coming up for air for like
Speaker 1: six months after the new baby. So so if you
Speaker 1: can't tack on that six months to the toddler's potty chaining.
Speaker 1: So the problem isn't that your kids having accidents. The
Speaker 1: problem is is that there's a seven pound crying ball
Speaker 1: of something that's stealing everybody's attention and love. So you
Speaker 1: know you have to fix that, not the um, not
Speaker 1: the not the regression, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And a lot of kids will regress when you go
Speaker 1: to nurse because why because the book tasted great. The
Speaker 1: toddler wants the boom back. Even if you bottle feed,
Speaker 1: there's an intimacy to feeding a newborn that the toddler's
Speaker 1: missing out on. So then you have to just carve
Speaker 1: that special time for the kid. That regressions are happening
Speaker 1: now because parents are going right back in after quarantine.
Speaker 1: We as adults could not wait to get back to
Speaker 1: real life. I have parents who just went and put
Speaker 1: their kids right after quarantine, full time, eight hour day daycare.
Speaker 1: I know you've got to work, but you've got to
Speaker 1: remember that this pandemic was like a quarter of these
Speaker 1: kids lives, and they loved quarantine. What tyler doesn't want
Speaker 1: to stay home and be up? Their parents asked all
Speaker 1: day long. They loved it. So so now we're there're
Speaker 1: separation anxiety. There's all these accidents. Yeah, that's not a regression,
Speaker 1: you guys, that's like total separation anxiety. We moved too fast,
Speaker 1: so be really cautious going back to real life here
Speaker 1: with your little one. And I know, I know, school,
Speaker 1: the whole situation with schools is just a clusterfuck right now.
Speaker 1: But just be be cautious and be sympathetic to your
Speaker 1: kid and look for their underlying needs in a regression.
Speaker 1: I love that about the phase where we're taking them out.
Speaker 1: Are you a big fan of putting a potty in
Speaker 1: the car? Yeah? Yea our potty. We have just a
Speaker 1: party that lives in the car now. And guess who
Speaker 1: uses it me? I want to be completely honest with you,
Speaker 1: My son uses it too. But like, we have done
Speaker 1: a few road trips to Malibu and I got a
Speaker 1: peace so bad and I don't feel safe going out
Speaker 1: into public restrooms or whatever. So I'm peeing in his
Speaker 1: body as well. It's been absolutely hilarious. What about peeing
Speaker 1: in nature? How do you feel about that? Wherever you want?
Speaker 1: Here's here's too much information. I can write my name
Speaker 1: in cursive in the snow. Wow. If we could hang out,
Speaker 1: if we can hang out right now during COVID times
Speaker 1: and just throw back a few and pe in nature,
Speaker 1: that would be amazing. My son, Yeah, my son, like
Speaker 1: that's how Because I waited too long way pass signs.
Speaker 1: He was just getting out of the pool and peeing
Speaker 1: in the grass, and I was like, oh, ship, do
Speaker 1: I have to do this. Oh, I don't want to
Speaker 1: do this at all. I want someone else to do this. Um,
Speaker 1: how about caretakers and daycares. When you've made this decision,
Speaker 1: let's say, is it just a big sit down conversation
Speaker 1: with everyone involved in your kids lives? Like how to
Speaker 1: get everyone on the same page? Is that really port? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know, And I'm not just trying to be a
Speaker 1: plug here for my courses, but we have a daycare
Speaker 1: course too. Because there's so many various factors and literally
Speaker 1: I wrote it with one of my consultants and we
Speaker 1: were playing this like mix and match game because there's
Speaker 1: so many variables. The number one thing is check with
Speaker 1: your daycare what their policy is, and really dig deep.
Speaker 1: Find out where the potties are. That's the biggest factor.
Speaker 1: A lot of times in a church kind of daycare setting,
Speaker 1: the potty is down the hall, under lock and key,
Speaker 1: totally wrong situation. And ask the teachers because most daycares
Speaker 1: will say, oh, we'll just follow your lead, but they won't.
Speaker 1: I call it transparent ass kissing. Do not get into
Speaker 1: a pissing match with the people who are in charge
Speaker 1: of your kid all day. Like if worse comes to worse,
Speaker 1: and it's a it's a major ship show. Just put
Speaker 1: a diaper back on for daycare, It's okay because if
Speaker 1: your kids having poop accidents every day, it's gonna wear
Speaker 1: and tear on the caregivers and it's gonna want your kid.
Speaker 1: We want we want them to love your kid and
Speaker 1: not have any attitude. So daycares are just really really
Speaker 1: really tricky. Um. The best thing I would say is
Speaker 1: get as much time at home as you can. That's
Speaker 1: the best predicted. Like, don't go for a Friday, Saturday,
Speaker 1: Sunday and then expect your kid to go back. Fine,
Speaker 1: the more time you have at home the better. And
Speaker 1: really be aware of your child's pee pattern and their
Speaker 1: pee dance so you can inform the daycare like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, after his morning juice, he usually PE's like
Speaker 1: once at eleven, you know, but then the seal is
Speaker 1: broken and help you three times in an hour. So
Speaker 1: just kind of pick up on the pattern and don't
Speaker 1: overwhelm your daycare. I have parents print out like nine
Speaker 1: pages of like the minutia. They don't care, they don't
Speaker 1: have time, you know, sweeping general stuff. Is it important
Speaker 1: for your significant other to be on board like the
Speaker 1: people in one hundred poorer cent. What I find is
Speaker 1: that the person who works outside the home has less
Speaker 1: investment because they don't want to be the bad guy
Speaker 1: when they get home. They don't want to be enforcing.
Speaker 1: Their time is limited with the kid, and they don't
Speaker 1: want it to be about this milestone that may or
Speaker 1: may not go well. So you have to be on board.
Speaker 1: And I have a cheat sheet for it. Says it's
Speaker 1: for dad's but it could be for the person working
Speaker 1: outside the home who may not have time to read
Speaker 1: the whole book. And um, what you can't do is
Speaker 1: say never mind, I'm just gonna do this on my
Speaker 1: own because you'll be fighting against each other. Yeah, not great.
Speaker 1: Any last pieces of advice and where can we find you? Okay?
Speaker 1: My number one rule is don't post on Facebook. It's
Speaker 1: like fight club. Don't talk about potty train until you're
Speaker 1: well done. I don't care if you use my book,
Speaker 1: but have a plan, be confident and just move forward.
Speaker 1: If you ask on Facebook, I don't know why, but
Speaker 1: this milestone, everybody's a know it all, everybody, and they're
Speaker 1: gonna say I have six kids and I did it
Speaker 1: this way. Six kids under somebody else's parenting roof is
Speaker 1: not your kid, So just make a plan, don't post
Speaker 1: on Facebook, and just and go with it. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: repeat this because it's so important. This is not a
Speaker 1: measurement of your parenting. If your kids struggles, it does
Speaker 1: not mean you're a bad parent. It does not mean
Speaker 1: you suck. It means you need a little extra help
Speaker 1: you need like tutoring. So it's not a measurement of
Speaker 1: your parenting. Do not think of that. You can find
Speaker 1: me at Jamie Glowacki dot com and my podcast is
Speaker 1: Oh Crap, I love my kids, but holy fuck, and
Speaker 1: that's on all the regular channels. You are the best, Jamie.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being on Katie's Crib. Thank
Speaker 1: you for sharing your time and your wealth of knowledge.
Speaker 1: You guys, I highly recommend PONTI training right now during
Speaker 1: quarantine if it's something that you've e been been thinking about.
Speaker 1: The book was so helpful to me. And thank you
Speaker 1: guys for listening to Katie's Crib. If you haven't already,
Speaker 1: be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that new
Speaker 1: episodes come to you. You can follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: or Twitter at Katie's Crib and please email us with
Speaker 1: all the questions and thoughts and suggestions you have at
Speaker 1: Katie's Crib at Shawonda land dot com. Katie's Crib is
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