Potty Training

We knew this time would come when our kids would need to be potty trained. But if you asked us 10 years ago what we thought potty training would be like, I can be 100% certain, we wouldn't have pictured us jumping up and down cheering for pee and poop!! :) But let me take a step back and explain how we came to this point.

We knew we wanted to start potty training sometime during the summer. Dylan is almost 2.5 yrs old and he's been letting us know periodically when he's wet and when his diaper needs to be changed. I also didn't want to deal with the challenge of potty training during the winter when there's more layers to take on and off during the multiple trips to the bathroom. Well all the sudden it dawned on me that it was the end of June already! I started looking ahead to the different weekends and July was already busy. And somehow I knew August would be booked too. Well last Wednesday it occurred to me that the last weekend in June was our only definite free weekend in a while, so I began to research some potty training info on the internet. And Thursday I continued to do the same, but still not 100% sure we'd be all set for the weekend. Friday morning 7:30am -- decision made: Potty training boot camp to start ASAP.

In my semi-limited research with potty training, I decided that the best option for us would be to try Lora Jenson's 3 Day Potty Training Method in conjunction with some tips from a co-worker and our daycare provider. Without getting too much in depth, the 3 day method involves helping the child to recognize their own body functions using lots of positive reinforcement and repetition. Since I am off Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I thought it would be a good method to try. Worst case scenario was that it wouldn't work and we'd have to try something else.


So Friday morning we said goodbye to the diapers and put on the training underwear (essentially padded underwear) and went to work. I let him run around without shorts so it made taking layers on and off much easier. Look at those cute little legs :)

We decided not to buy a kiddie potty and instead use a normal toilet and have him face backwards. It helped to limit the messiness that he might spray everywhere since he's looking downward into the toilet to watch :) and he felt much more secure holding on. Also he then can use any bathroom anywhere, and we don't have to carry a porta-potty with us as we run errands in the near future.

Well about an hour in, we had gone through 7 pairs of underwear! Yikes! (I only had 12 pairs for him!) He had gone pee on the toilet during that time, but he would only go a teeny bit, then get off the toilet, and start to go again 2 minutes later. Needless to say, I ran back and forth a gazillion times to the bathroom that morning. We then opted to try naked from the waist-down to try to stretch those underwear until his nap time. He didn't care for that too much since he tends to get cold. So the underwear came back on. :) I did laundry during his nap to re-stock the underwear stash. And began the process all again at 1:30pm when he woke up from his nap. Slowly but surely I began to see some progress. The accidents were getting smaller and less frequent and he seemed to be starting to get the hang of peeing in the toilet. But by Friday night, I was exhausted! My back was really sore from lifting and carrying Dylan so much as I raced back and forth to the bathroom. I hurt my neck my jumping up and down cheering for him with each success! ;) But I was hopeful.

Saturday morning Dylan continued to do better, but it was much harder for me to continue to stay energetic the whole day. It took A LOT of effort to keep up the positive reinforcement as accidents happened. By the end of Saturday I was wiped out!! I never ever realized it would be so hard on the parent to do some methods of potty training. I began questioning whether we made the right decision, but knew we were too far involved this weekend to quit. Sunday continued to go in the right direction and we even had the first poop in the potty!! You should have seen the cheering for that one! :) :) Thankfully Matt didn't get my reaction on video! (He was trying to!!) Dylan got a sticker as a reward and boy was he excited!

Overall the weekend was exhausting, emotional and tiring -- but worth it. Dylan hasn't had any wet accidents for two days now (knock on wood) except for three nighttime ones -- which I'm partially to blame for those. He's still figuring out pooping, but that will come. He will verbally tell us that he needs to go about 25% of the time. We have him go to the bathroom before and after snacks, meals, and playtime, and most of the time he will voluntarily head to the bathroom when you tell him its time to go.

Dylan wasn't 100% potty trained in 3 days, but I still consider it a success and will probably do the same for Parker. The only difference is that I'd probably schedule it for a 4 day weekend or take Monday off to fine tune some more things. But our daycare provider has been really good at helping with carryover. He hasn't worn any pull-ups yet. Although I'm still debating about nighttime with this, but figure I'll give it a couple more days to see the result. All-in-all, I think we built a good foundation for Dylan and we are proud of our BIG BOY! :)