This mom pretty much saw every bathroom in Magic Kingdom.
Admittedly our timing wasn’t great when we planned a trip to Disney World, but it was our older children’s spring break. We’d only been on the potty training track for a few weeks when we hit Magic Kingdom with our 3-year-old son. all saps diaper
He was wearing undies at home and doing great, save the occasional potty miss (cleaning pee off the bathroom floor is my cardio). He’s still in Pull-Ups when we leave the house for longer than a short trip. That was of course the case when we walked onto Main Street, taking in Cinderella’s Castle, and all the amazing sites and sounds of Disney World.
On that cloudy, cool morning, our little guy, clad in a Pull-Up, had hit the potty back at home (we live a few hours away from the Happiest Place on Earth). By the time we arrived, he needed to go—and probably had uttered those words a few times en route. We parked and proceeded to walk what felt like five miles to the ferry to take us to the park. He was fine to wait until we went through the main gate at Magic Kingdom, thankfully—and then our first stop was the restroom.
Moments later I found myself crouched on the soggy bathroom floor with my face this close to the toilet, helping my son step out of his Pull-Up post-potty try success, and step into a new one. I felt as glamorous as Cinderella at the ball alright!
Of course, I’d find myself in this posture several times throughout the course of the day, grimacing and grunting while lifting my son on and off the potty, a bloated Pull-Up dangling off his ankle, and a line of waiting guests outside. The good news is that so far, he had used the bathroom each time, so I felt like at least we weren’t losing too much ground during the trip—even if it wasn’t exactly progress that he had been in a Pull-Up all day. I rationalized that in the long run, we’d get there, and maybe by the next time we did Disney, he’d be ready to roll in undies from morning until night.
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Still, in the back of my mind, I knew he hadn’t pooped yet, and as the hours ticked by, with Haunted Mansion, Small World, and Tomorrowland Speedway checked off our bucket list, my anxiety grew that we might run into an issue (he refuses to poop in a Pull-Up). How right I was. About 15 minutes into the one-hour wait for Jungle Cruise, my darling son announced loudly enough for all of Adventureland to hear, “I HAVE TO POOP!”
With empathetic parents looking on, and a group of teens ahead of us in line snickering, I leaned down and whispered in my son’s ear, “Honey, you’ll have to wait.” This pattern of declaring that he had to go, and me assuring him we’d make a bathroom stop ASAP continued on repeat for the next 45 minutes until we got on the ride and he was sufficiently distracted.
In the bathroom moments later, he tried, but nothing happened. He tried in about 14 other bathrooms until we left. Then, he tried again at the hotel that night and the next morning. By the following afternoon, while our family shopped and snacked at Disney Springs, he kept saying his belly hurt but refused to park his buns on an unfamiliar toilet seat for more than a hot second. And if you’re thinking that every last sensation in his large intestine was the top topic for our ride home, you’d be right!
At last, upon arriving back at home, he was finally able to poop. What a magical ending to our vacation! Now, we’ve returned to our routine and all is well. But I couldn’t help but reflect on how challenging it had been to try and pull off a Disney trip with a child new to potty training.
As Ari Brown, MD, an Austin, Texas-based pediatrician and founder of the Baby 411 book series and parent education tells Parents, potty training a child who is showing signs of readiness before going on a trip isn’t ideal—but can’t always be avoided.
If you find yourself in my shoes, Dr. Brown says it’s good to know that newly-trained pottiers “will need to use the bathroom about every 90 minutes to two hours” so you can plan ahead. As I learned the hard way, she says, “Kids sometimes are fearful of public toilets—especially ones with automatic flush features!”
Her advice? “Stop by the nearest Walmart at your destination and buy a cheap portable potty to use in the hotel or elsewhere and leave it.”
If you find that your child gets severely constipated, Steve Hodges, Professor of Pediatric Urology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, co-founder of BedwettingAndAccidents.com, and co-author of The Pre-M.O.P. Plan: How to Resolve Constipation in Babies and Toddlers and Overcome Potty Training Struggles, says the best solution is to “Stop toilet training and focus on resolving the constipation.”
most biodegradable diapers In the end, given my experience, and in general, Dr. Brown advises it’s best to wait until after a big trip to really tackle potty training. That is unless you are somehow keen on getting to see as many bathrooms at Disney World as possible!