the child who is most special because of a negative: he refuses sleep,
she’s always sick, he’s so intense, she’s never done what everyone else
does, he never lets me eat, and so on. Please don’t make your child
special for not potty training. It’s an area where it’s just fine to be
average. In fact, go in the other direction. If your kid’s going to be
special, let him be special for doing it quickly and easily.
In any event, should you feel your child really hasn’t gotten the
gist of potty training after the first day, that’s okay. Our twenty-four-
hour system dictates that you move on to day two, but it’s totally fine
if you’re still in Block One as far as learning goes. Blocks are defined
by progress made, not by time passed. I can’t state this enough: every
child is different. Remember that timeline we talked about? Clueless to
I Peed to I’m Peeing to I Have to Go Pee? Look for progress, not
perfection. Nothing is really a problem on these first few days. It’s
vital to remember how new this is to your child. We cannot expect
them to “get it” just because we say it, and this whole thing is a
process, okay? If they need a little more time on Block One, that’s
fine.
For subsequent days in Block One, you will go back to normal fluid
consumption and work on getting the pee in the potty.
End result: A successful completion of Block One should look
something along the lines of your child, while naked, can sit to pee
and poop on the potty. This can be because you prompted, you led
him, or he went on his own. If you do not see this, you are still on Block
One and should not move on until you see a successful completion of the
end result. Don’t expect perfection, but you should have a sense of