Oh Crap! Potty Training

Now, I live in a city that has many day care options, and I realize this
is not true for everyone. Still, it’s so not cool for a day care to agree
with you to your face and then do something else entirely behind
your back.
My advice is to really get a feel for your care provider’s attitude.
You’ll be able to tell just by body language, tone, and the words they
choose how they are going to act. Again, this is where some day cares
get huffy about their authority.
Don’t fight, but gently prod and fully express how you’d like potty
training handled. Some day cares will pull out a policy, written down
—’cause that means it’s real—that states your child must stay in
diapers until potty trained. Gently try to work your way around this.
The best way is to act totally stupid, like, “Gee . . . that’s weird. I
would think it’d be hard to learn something new while actively taking
part in the old. Hmmm . . . that seems very odd.”
If it’s looking like they won’t budge, that’s okay, too. As I stated at
the beginning of this chapter, I used to think this was the end of the
world. But it’s not.
I used to write letters, on behalf of my clients, even talk to day
cares on the phone. Moms would be getting ulcers trying to knock
sense into them. And, yes, we got our way. But then we had day care
providers on edge—they were nervous wrecks, totally overprompting
and hovering. No good. We need this process to be stress-free for
your child. An anxious provider is going to derail things even more
than a diaper.
If your child has to wear a diaper at day care, there’s just not much
you can do about it. What you can do is keep with the (diaper-free)
system at home. Most parents figure out a way to make this work. It