A mom who was trying to potty train her 2-year-old son says her son’s progress was completely derailed thanks to her mother-in-law.
According to the Reddit user’s post, the first two weeks of potty training were going really well. “He has his own plastic potty, and he has been doing very well with using it until about two weeks ago,” the mom wrote, that is until her mother-in-law reportedly ruined all of the progress he made.
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As the mom continued, while her son’s paternal grandmother was visiting him, she made a tasteless joke that derailed everything he had worked towards. “I was taking my son to go use the bathroom,” the Reddit user continued. “She then decided to tell him, ‘Be careful, a monster might pop out of the toilet!’ My son then started crying, and he refused to use his potty and wet his pants instead.”
Mom Kicked Her Mother-In-Law Out For Ruining Her Son’s Potty Training Progress With a Dumb Joke
“My husband and I asked Grandma what the hell she was thinking, and she only got defensive and insisted that it was just a joke. She refused to apologize. So we kicked her out of the house.”
And still two weeks after the grandmother made the joke, the mom says her son is still afraid to use his training potty as a result. “My son has been refusing to use his potty since then for the past two weeks, and we had to put him back into diapers for the time being.”
The mom then said she and her husband made the decision “to permanently ban his mom from ever seeing our son again.” After realizing how serious the parents are taking her joke, the mom wrote that the grandmother is now “begging for our forgiveness.” However, because the grandmother didn’t initially apologize, the mom admits she’s still not sure if they should forgive her.
Now, the mom is asking Reddit if she’s being too on the grandmother? And while many agreed that she is being a bit too harsh by banning the grandmother from seeing her grandson over a joke, they also offered advice on how to alleviate her son’s fears and get him back on track when it comes to potty training.
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One commenter wrote, “Get a stand-up urinal for now with a paddle wheel or frog he can pee on, you can locate it away from the toilet. Have him watch lots of friendly monster movies. Maybe a diagram of a sewer system showing him all the pipes and bends and traps. Ninja turtles live in the sewer.”
And another person added, “Monster spray works really well too! That’s what made me and my sisters feel better when we were little.”