Saturday, April 28, 2012

Getting Serious About Potty Learning/Training

He's 2 years and 3 months old today. Time to grow up, kid!! As much as I love my cloth diapers, mama is SO ready to have a break from diapering and doing all the laundry that comes with it. A 5+ month break would be just AWESOME, okay buddy?
Potty...
The reason why I had a goal of 2 years, 3 months in mind to seriously potty train Braden is because that's when my nephew Luke was trained, and they really seem to be developing on pretty much the same curve. Up until now I've been using the term "potty learning", but now...I'm going to do my research this week, and I'm hoping by the beginning of next week we can go into hard core potty training. I am a firm believer that kids CAN be trained. Touchy subject to some, I know...but I sleep trained my baby, and look how awesome that went! I know, and it is not my intent, to push potty training on him. I do not want him to have a bad experience, make it negative in any way at all....but I want it done. I feel like I know he's ready by things he says and the interest he does have in the potty now. He loves to sit on the potty, but as soon as his naked little bum hits the toilet seat he says "done!" He does understand and say to us "Pee on potty! Get potty treat!" but then he doesn't actually do it!

So here's where my week approaching of research comes in. We've been reading this book for months with Braden:
 It also came with a little boy doll and potty so that Braden can "teach" the doll how to use the potty and it comes with this DVD, which I will start showing to Braden this upcoming week, every day.
Laura trained my nephew Luke with this book:

It sounds too good to be true, but I think with whatever method I use, if I'm just consistent and have the determination to do it, I will, and so will Braden. One of my Twitter friends saw some of my tweets about potty training and says she swears by the three day method. I will use this week to review which method, or a combination of the two???, will work best for us.

For my mommy friends who have potty trained your toddlers...here are some concerns I have, and points I wanted to make, and if you could comment with suggestions or advice, I'd greatly appreciate it!
  • Braden typically doesn't care if he is soaking wet or even if he has a poopy diaper...does this mean he's not ready?
  • He is holding his bladder longer every week, and seems to have one big huge pee a few times a day
  • I leave him commando (sans diaper) in the morning for up to 2 hours and he doesn't have an accident
  • He shows great interest when me or Jay go to the potty
  • Knows he gets a "potty treat" (I have a jar of M&M's) if he goes...but doesn't seem motivated on his own enough to pee to actually get said treat.
  • When I see Braden pooping, I have asked him in the past "do you want to go poop on the potty?" he says "no"
  • Has been quite upset, even seems "devastated", when I have changed his poopy diapers lately
  • He only poops every 3-4 days...will that be really hard to train?
  • Do I go right into night training too? I really don't want to just do a load of 3 cloth diapers every 3 days only for nighttime use...know what I mean? 
  • We will not be using cloth "pull ups" only underwear
  • What do you think of this reward system:
As far as rewards go...I have this free potty chart that I'm going to put in our bathroom, and he can put a Thomas sticker whenever he does each of these things:
I am also going to take away all of his toy trains...seriously! And make a very visual chart so that when he pees once, he will get a sticker and then get "Thomas" back. Then when he pees/poops twice, he will get to put the stickers on his chart and get "Percy" back, and so on and so forth. Mean mommy? I don't know, in my head that as a reward system will probably work better than the M&M's, his face lit up like a Christmas tree when my Mom gave him a bunch of new trains last weekend! So why not take them away and give them back? Plus I have brand new trains, some of the "big" ones that he will get once he's farther along in training. I also will be telling him that he will get a train table in his room once his diaper change table is gone. I'm not 100% sure he will understand that...but it's worth a shot. We do have a train table for him, was going to save it for Christmas, but #1 he won't actually get to "open" it at Christmas...we'd have to set it up and leave it at home anyway, and #2 if it's a big motivator in helping my boy get potty trained, it's worth the early present!

I'd love to hear your encouraging stories and helpful advice, friends!
Sarah

6 comments:

  1. Thus far in my PT experience, limited as it is, I'm believer in presenting it, talking about it & letting them lead the way. I think if you force the issue its harder. Check back with me in a month & see how I feel though!

    The thing I am learning with Livi is that PT is too small of a term. There is daytime PT. Pee PT. Poop PT. Night PT. And I don't think that is something you can do all in one swoop. She has been daytime pee PT since Jan. We are working on Poop PT still. And she is evolving to be Night PT over time. I think it takes a while for them to realize the feeling & learn to hold it that long at night. We have done nothing to night PT per say, its just evolving for her over time.

    I also think rewards need to be instant. Their little brains can't comprehend the long term bigger goal. We have been telling Livi for weeks if she learns to poop on the potty she can have this thing she wants. And she repeats that all the time. But I'm figuring out I think it confuses her every time she DOES go, why she doesn't get it right away. I am mid changing our system for that trying to decide what to do.

    And commando is the way to go with boys I hear. Skip the undies all together until they are getting the hang of it a little.

    Good Luck!!

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    1. That is a REALLY good point, Katie...to reward immediately. I definitely will continue with potty treats, and you're right...he might not understand the train table long term goal thing. When we pack up the diapers, I think I'll get Daddy to remove the change table and we might just put up the train table sans trains so he does have that every day visual.

      Seeing it in writing, the gradual transition from daytime pee, poop, and nighttime PT makes a lot of sense. I think it takes a lot of pressure off and calling it an "evolution" is brilliant.

      Thanks as always for your truly helpful, and inspiring comment!

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  2. You have an awesome plan! Don't get discouraged if it doesn't pan out in the beginning! Little ones are stubborn and like to do things in their own time! I agree with the previous comment. When I trained my 2 yr old last summer, I let him run around most mornings without pants. He would then just go use the little potty I set up in the room whenever he wanted to. It worked out really really well! Within a week, he was trained (although he's still in pull-ups at night, I'm tackling that this summer!)

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    Replies
    1. Yes, I can really see Braden being stubborn, but I really hope he'll surprise me and be the opposite...yeah right! I think I'll have underwear on him, but no pants. He's not the best at dressing/undressing himself anyway, but he does know where his laundry hamper is and how to clean up messes should he make one. I think after more research that I've done I'm going to leave nighttime PT until he's a bit older.

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  3. i have always heard boys are harder to train than girls. i believe it!!! i'm going to my mail right now, i'll throw this in with the sleep thing, haha!!

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  4. You also have to train them to be healthy. There are various ways in order to avoid sickness.

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