Well, we finally took the leap and decided to potty train Caleb this past weekend + Monday! I'd been told by multiple people that the "three-day potty training" method worked well so we read up on it and decided to give it a whirl! I am so glad we decided to go for it and that we are doing this 3-day thing. I only wish we'd done this sooner...months ago. I think this is definitely the best method for Caleb. I know some people try to potty train more gradually with pull-ups and training underwear, but Caleb really needed this "cold turkey" method! With pull-ups, he would know he had an "out" and could just go in them instead of the potty...much like a diaper. But since we just stopped the diapers all together and went straight to underwear 24/7, telling him to keep the underwear dry, he has no other option than going in the toilet if he wants to stay dry...and he does!
So let me do a little recap of our prep work and Day One! (this will be a long one, folks!)
A couple nights before we started, we took a family trip to Walmart and let Caleb pick out some underwear and his potty chair. I also bought a comfy seat (from Target) to go on the big toilet and now looking back, I would have skipped getting the little stand-alone chair because we have not ended up using it. I feel weird taking it back since we opened it and it's a potty, ha! Oh well, $25 down the drain but not the end of the world. Caleb picked some Cars undies and an Elmo potty. We also got some other WM brand undies and already had Thomas the Train undies, so we have 24 pairs total/ (the method calls for 20-30 pairs!)
We decided for our rewards for actually going on the potty (not just "trying" or sitting on the potty), we'd let him pick between M&M's (5) or Hershey Kisses (2). Rhett says the chocolate ratio of 5 M&M's vs. 2 Kisses is off, but hey I have never claimed to be an expert in chocolate ratios.....just chocolate eating!! :-) I bought some little plastic containers at Walmart, filled them with our treats and set them on the bathroom counter. We are also keeping our undies stash sitting on the counter for easy access. We also got a few small rewards (mostly little cars) and some "big" rewards for extra special accomplishments (a toy doctor kit...will explain that one later, remote control cars, and a new Mickey DVD). These are for things like using the potty for the very first time, going #2 for the first time, etc. Maybe I went a little overboard on the rewards, but new toys (and candy) are Caleb's love language right now - ha!
So at this point, we were ready to go with our rewards and our resolve to NEVER go back to diapers!
The first thing you have to do is tell your child that they are going to wear big kid underwear from now on and no more diapers. Diapers are for babies and underwear is for big kids! Then you're supposed to have them throw away every single diaper you have left so they'll see that the diapers are gone. Um, I will admit that we did not throw away our diapers. Hello! Those things are not cheap, especially the night diapers. Plus, I save diapers for the next kid. I am not about to throw away perfectly good diapers! So yes, we cheated on this part and kept our diapers. We did agree to never go back to them, though and we are resolved to stick to the undies from here on out! We just told Caleb that he is never wearing diapers again and that he now wears big boy underwear! We did let him throw his final wet diaper away!
You are supposed to stay with your child every waking minute of the day for three straight days. No trips outside the house! You have to be very near the potty, so no running errands and no doing chores while your kid's in the other room. You have to catch any and all accidents so it's important to be with them at all times. Thankfully, Rhett and I were doing this together so we were able to tag-team Caleb duty. You take a trip to the bathroom and show them the potty and tell them this is where they will pee and poo now...not in their underwear. You have to remind them every 5 seconds (not literally, but it seriously feels like that) that they need to tell you if they need to pee or poo and that they are to keep their diaper dry. We let Caleb pick out which pair of undies he wanted to wear and he picked some with Lightning McQueen! We put them on and we were ready to go! Oh, and they're supposed to go without pants so you can better tell if they're wet or dry and for quicker potty trips. At first, Caleb was really upset about this because he has never cared for going around naked. He wants clothes on! After a while, he stopped asking for shorts and went with it...but from time to time he would ask where his shorts were - ha!
We had a picnic breakfast in the living room to start our day in a different and fun way. We kept telling Caleb over and over to tell us if he needed to go use the potty and asking him if his undies were still dry. Nothing happened for probably 45 minutes, then all of a sudden he shouts "uh oh!" and grabs the front of his undies. When they have an accident, you're supposed to pick them up and run them to the bathroom so Rhett did that since he was right by him. This was a good opportunity for us to reinforce keeping the undies dry and telling us when he needed to go. About an hour later (I think), he had another accident so Rhett ran him to the bathroom again. Hopefully, they will finish on the potty but Caleb was always done before Rhett got him to the potty. It is good for them to have some accidents, though so that they know what it's like to have wet undies. After those two accidents, we were in the kitchen and I was cooking something so Caleb wanted to cook too. I gave him some brown sugar, oats and chocolate sprinkles and he was "cooking" and stirring them around. He did the "uh oh" thing again, only he hadn't had a full accident. He just "dribbled" a little. I could not get him to sit on the potty so we just changed the undies and did our reminders again. He then dribbled again...we changed undies....and he dribbled a third time.
By this time, I knew he was trying to hold it so I told him we were going to go sit on the potty. He wasn't too happy about it and I think I broke a "rule" by making him sit on the potty, but I knew he needed to go. Not long after I sat him down, he started going. He could not hold it any longer. We started screaming and clapping and acting crazy excited and he was so proud of himself! For using the potty for the very first time, he got a play doctor kit. His new favorite show that he LOVES on Disney Jr. is Doc McStuffins, so I told him it was a doctor kit like Doc McSuffins has. He was so excited and played with it the rest of the day. The rest of the day, he told us a couple times that he needed to tee-tee and he only had one or two more "dribble" accidents. I am amazed that he really caught on so quickly!
As I mentioned before, the 3-day method suggests that you do both day and night training at one time so as not to confuse them that it is sometimes ok to wear diapers and "go" in them. At first I was thinking there was no way we would do that! I didn't/don't want to be up at night changing wet clothes and sheets. But, we decided that we'd like to at least give it the three days/nights and see what happened! She recommends that if your child still wakes up wet (I'm talking before potty training), that you wake them an hour after they go to sleep and an hour before they normally wake up to take them to the restroom. Caleb always wakes up with a full wet diaper, so this is what we did. He went down around 9:30pm and I watched the monitor like a hawk and listened to him. He stays awake for a good while after being put to bed, so I had to keep checking on him. Around 11pm, I noticed him really squirming (still awake) and looking at where he was laying. I went in to check and sure enough, he'd had an accident. To avoid changing sheets, I'd layered like 4 quilts on the spot where he always sleeps so I just took off the few layers that it soaked through and didn't have to change everything. I got him changed and back to bed for the night. I did get him up around 1am and took him to the bathroom again. He peed and then I put him right back to bed. At 7:15am, I got him up and he was DRY! I know he technically didn't make it through the entire night, but this is a start!
So, with only two real daytime accidents and one nighttime accident, we definitely considered Day One to be a success!! Stay tuned for an update on Days 2 and 3......and the dreaded "#2" issues!
And since I can't do a post without pictures, here are a few pics I like to call "Scenes from Potty Training" :-)
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| our "big boy toilet paper" - also known as toddler wipes. |
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| found this potty seat at Target and it is great...nice and comfy (yes, I sat on it and tried it out - ha!) and the little pee shield is the perfect height. The cars are for playing with...trying to make the bathroom experience an enjoyable one. :-) |
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