Potty Training

One more quick blog post before the move, potty training! I knew he was ready probably around Christmas time but I decided to wait until we got home from our 3 week trip. And then I realized we'd be traveling again in February. And then I decided I'd wait until he turned 3 in March. Yeah, I was putting it off. I was scared because I know how stubborn he can be. But all in all it went pretty well. We definitely had some hard days but he really was ready to learn.

I went with the naked method, at first because he would not put on underwear. He was not one of those kids excited to pick out the big kid underwear in the store. We had gone past them several times at target and he'd seem interested but would never want me to put them in the shopping cart haha. But it was better for him to be naked anyways because that is how it clicked.

Day one of naked towel sitting

Literally the day after he turned 3 the fun began. It was a Monday so the start of a new week and we really didn't' have much going on so I stuck around home mostly. He used this lightning mcqueen toilet exclusively at first. It started out in the family room and so it wouldn't seem like he had to go away from his toys or show to go. I would even move it upstairs and put it in the bathroom up their if we were playing upstairs. He really caught on after a day. He did not like it when I forced him to go every 15 minutes like people recommend and it was better if I gave him more time and let him decide to sit there. Day one we had one accident and lots of success (of both varieties) on the toilet.

His first time going because he knew he needed to.

 So this scene below was our life for that first week. If i put underwear on him those first few days he would normally have an accident but after the first day he never once had an accident while naked. So it was a slow process transitioning to normal clothes again but overall it went better than I could have guessed. The hard days included him going #2 as soon as I put underwear or a pull up on him it seemed. Those first couple weekends were tough because we would be out and about a lot and he wasn't super comfortable on public toilets yet. But as long as we were home, we were good!

Thomas the train, Jake and the neverland pirates, and Lightning McQueen have been our first kinds for this boy.

I used bribery but after a time or two that really didn't do much. I had M&Ms and Marshmallows that he liked but after a while I think he was going out of habit and not for the treat. I just kept telling him how proud I was of him and after a good day I let him have his favorite dinner, dino nuggets and chocolate milk.

Looks like pear too, he loves him some fruit...

Showing Daddy his big boy underwear

The two weeks leading up to Kawisaki (so the last couple weeks of April) he was wearing underwear all the time at home and pull ups when he went out to joy school, nursery or Disney. At that point it had been a month! Those weeks he had one accident each week while out, but I considered him trained. He also had dry pants in the morning! As soon as we started training I put him in a pull up at night, but we really didn't need to.

After Kawisaki & being in the hospital he did regress a bit. He had accidents frequently and so we put him strictly in pull ups for those couple weeks. He even started waking up wet almost every day. But since getting to our house in CT I don't think he's had a single accident. He sometimes woke up wet again so we had him in pull ups at night still but just recently we stopped that too.

It really is so nice having only 1 diaper to change now, I'm so proud of my boy :)