We are SO excited and proud to declare this child a POTTY TRAINING SUCCESS!!!Here's the story:
Isaac has been interested and excited about potty training for MONTHS. Literally MONTHS. We had experimented with him sitting on the toilet a time or two - I think we even let him try wearing underwear for an hour or so once. He had already successfully peed on the toilet before (and we had cheered immensely). And boy had we talked up potty training. We had talked about his friends that were "big boys" and went potty in the toilet - and he was highly motivated and interested. Ready to go. Definitely.
I, on the other hand, not so much. :( I kept finding excuses - we were moving and then I was morning sick - good excuses, right? Anyway, I had heard from other mothers what an ordeal it could be... and I wasn't looking forward to it at all. I had also heard that it was easier if you waited until the child was really "ready"... so I just kept waiting. If I waited long enough would he just potty train himself, I wondered? But I knew I couldn't procrastinate forever... so as soon as I started to feel a little bit better (less morning sick) I decided it was time to tackle the potty training beast.
I felt like I needed to prepare a "plan of attack" - but I could never quite make myself dive into reading a bunch of books about it (they bored me). So I talked to a few friends, thought about it, discussed it with Jeremy, and eventually we came to a plan that didn't stress me out. We decided to take a "laid back" "cold turkey" "Potty-train in a day" approach.
I prepared by checking out kid books from the library and reading them to Isaac, purchasing underwear, borrowing a kiddie toilet (personal preference - I discovered that I STRONGLY prefer the little toilet seat insert that actually sits on the real toilet seat - less clean up for me!), making sure that I had lots of beverages on hand, foaming hand soap, a step stool, and flushable wipes. We also focused on teaching him how to take his pants on and off on his own. Then we got out the calendar and chose a start date - Saturday August 20th it was.
It was key to choose a Saturday - Jeremy was home. So, on Saturday morning when Isaac woke up - Jeremy was 100% in charge. He put him in underwear - and handed him some juice. After Isaac's first accident on the carpet, we did decide to move the kitchen table out of the kitchen (to create more space) and move a bunch of toys onto the linoleum - and keep him in there (for easy clean up).
We didn't make a big deal out of accidents at all - just said "uh-oh" and had him help clean it up. We actually practiced how we were going to respond together beforehand... I wanted to be careful that we didn't over-react and didn't make him feel "bad" about this natural part of the learning process.
But we praised and cheered and celebrated A TON for each success.
(We didn't do candy or stickers or prizes... just cheered. I wanted to try to celebrating with him and helping him feel intrinsic joy in his accomplishments and efforts - if it hadn't worked I'm sure that we would have tried those things... but for Isaac's personality - this worked just fine).
We initially set a timer for every 15 minutes and when the timer went off Jeremy and Isaac would run to the bathroom and sit on the toilet. Success or not, we cheered. Then we offered more beverages... and reset the timer.
This approach worked great all Saturday morning. I think we had one or two accidents. It was awesome. But as soon as we got lax about reminding him to go CONSTANTLY - we had a few accidents. But we all learned (I learned that I was being "potty trained" just as much as he was - as to my responsibilities as a mother of a freshly potty training youngster).
In the first 4 days of potty training we had a total of 5 potty accidents.
INCREDIBLE.
Yay Isaac!!!
Side note: We kept him in diapers for naptime for the first week of potty training. Then, after he woke up dry several days in a row, we kept him in his underwear and he did great. He is still wearing a diaper at night time - and he probably will until he wakes up dry on a regular basis. We'll see... anyway - back to the potty training adventures.
The bad news.
Poop was a whole other story.
By day 4 we had still no poop success. :(
And I wasn't afraid to bribe him at this point. So we had asked him what he wanted as his prize when he would go poop in the toilet and his response?? He said that he wanted a Poo Poo party with brown (chocolate) cake and his cousins over (he came up with it on his own!). Hilarious!
So we had a chocolate brownie mix (I didn't have a chocolate cake mix) and we put that next to the toilet and we talked and talked about how exciting this poo party would be.
Tuesday came and he had THREE poop accidents.
ARGGGHHHHH!!!!
So frustrating.
I would ask him if he had to go - put him on the toilet - after he tried with no success - I would take him off the toilet - and he would immediately poop his pants.
Yuck.
(Our tactic was the same with poo accidents as with pee accidents - we just had him literally scrub his underwear out himself and clean up the whole mess with us. But we desperately tried not to overreact about it or to make him feel bad - it was just an accident - I tried to remember that).
One of the accidents happened when I sat him on the toilet and told him to try - but then I had to walk away to help Elise with something - and he proceeded to climb OFF the toilet and poop while walking all the way across my kitchen floor. And then - before I could stop her - Elise walked through the kitchen.
Poop.
Everywhere.
Yuck.
Definitely the low point of potty training.
The good news?
He eventually got it!!!
He kept doing awesome with the actual "potty" part of potty training and by Friday, August 25th - we had a successful poo in the toilet and Isaac earned his poo party!!!
We called Dad and some other family to celebrate and then we made the brownies together.
Yay Isaac!!!!!
We had the poo party that night and he has been amazing-ly consistent with potty training ever since.
Looking back, I'm really glad that we waited until Isaac was as ready as he was. I feel like he grasped the concept more quickly overall AND he became more independent at the whole process of potty training very quickly as well. I don't feel like either Isaac or I were traumatized by the experience - which is good. :) In fact, I'm not even really dreading potty training Elise. It was hard and messy - but not terrible. I liked our approach - not that it would have worked for everyone - but for Isaac and I - and how ready HE was - it worked WONDERFULLY!!
We are so proud of him and happy to see him so proud of himself as he learns this new skill!Good work Isaac!!!!
