Potty 101

While this is not a very interesting post for those not in toddler land. I would like to at least document this for Baby #2 when it comes time to hit the potty up again. I am now declaring Will potty trained. We are still having an accident or two a week, but most of the time he is communicating his needs and making it to the potty in time. So here is the run down. First, we spend the first two weeks of summer vacation in cloth diapers ONLY. And really starting to talk about feeling wet or having poops in your butt. And I start the mantra, your pee goes in the potty. I will say this about 1,295,697 times in the next four weeks.

July 5th - Potty association day - Will sits on the potty every 1/2 hour and receives an M&M for each attempt. He left the diaper on for most of the day. This was just for him to associate the potty with something good. Before this, he wouldn't really sit on the potty and didn't have much interest. He really seemed to be into this compensation thing.

July 6th-8th - We go pantsless. Will is now naked for these days. Diapers at night and at nap time. I am now STARING at Will's penis ALL DAY LONG! I am trying to catch him in the act and get him to the potty in time. We have a huge celebration if he gets a drop of pee in the potty. This does not happen too often, but once or twice a day. Enough to keep me motivated to keep trying. We also continue sitting on the potty every 1/2 hour with the M&Ms. We spend most of the time down in the family room playing and watching TV. At this point, if we leave the house he wears diapers.

July 9th-19th - I bite the bullet and he is now in training pants. I found that Gerber training pants (Target) worked the best. NO PULL_UPS!! They also have plastic pants that the kids can wear at night. I found that these were WAY too big on our skinny little two year old. So I only used them once and still have to clean up the mess. I will pass on plastic pants next time. But the Gerber cloth training pants are great! They have enough absorption for the start of pee to buy you the 5 seconds needed to get him to the potty and the pants off. So, we did get to the potty more often in this time period but he was still "wetting" his pants each time. We had about 8 pairs of pants and I did laundry every day. During this time, Will made it to the potty at least once a day and was starting to "tell" me that that he needed to go. "Poo, run!!" Each day got better and he seemed to really be making the connection. I was getting excited that my experiment was working and I was going to be able to ditch the diapers for good.

July 20th - My give up day. We wake up. Will is dry. He then pees in my bed and as soon as he is dry and we are down stairs, he pees again! AGAIN, and doesn't say a word, just goes over and starts playing with his trains. At this point, I am T-I-R-E-D! I have lost my patience. All my good vibes from the last two weeks are gone. I throw Will's butt in a diaper and we leave the house. I go up to my sister's house. I don't take the potty with me or a change of clothes. I just pack the diaper bags full of diapers and head out. THANKFULLY, my sister talks some sense in me. She tells me that I am a good mother and Will has made amazing progress and I would be a fool to throw it all away. I promise her that I will try again tomorrow. THANK GOD FOR SISTERS!! In retrospect, I think I needed this day. I needed a break. I needed to give Will a break. I needed to really look back and see what worked and what didn't. When we got home. Paul took over potty training for the evening and amazingly Will used the potty twice and stayed dry till bed time.

July 21st - July 31st - Full time big kids pants. I am back on the prowl. The break seems to give me and Will a new focus. He really starts getting it. We start going out of the house. I learned to sit Will on public toilets sideways. That way he is not falling into the potty and can put his hands on either side. to stabilize himself. A word to the wise, take the pants all the way off. Will tended to get excited when he peed and it would splash a bit. He really started to communicate and even went in his potty with my sister and mother-in-law watching him.

August 1st to present - He has now gone accident free for a week! I am SO proud. He is giving me time to get him to the potty and we don't use the little potties at home anymore. At home, he sits backwards on the potty. That way he can lean forward and flush and still see what is going on. Thankfully, we never had the issue where he didn't want to poop in the potty. It all happened for us at the same time. I know that we are lucky with Will. He seems to take to things pretty easily.

I am worried about the transition to me going back to work, him going to preschool and the new arrival of his sibling. I hope that we take these events all in stride. I guess I will blog about that as we hit them!