You, Me and Potty Makes Three

We’ve done it.

We have mostly said goodbye to diapers. We have rocked the big boy pants and kicked butt at going “number one.” We’ve even nailed down letting mommy know when going “number two” is a necessity. If you follow my tweets or even my Facebook, then you know that this past week has been busy, busy, busy with potty trips and training. I’ve gotten so much encouragement from all of you, and a few of you have even asked me how I managed to potty train my not even two year old son yet. Today, I’m going to share with you the method that worked for us. I do not in ANY way claim to be an expert on potty training. I don’t know if maybe I just got lucky or if little man was just a fast learner. But this is what I did to potty train.

For starters, I don’t believe in Pull-ups. It’s the same as a diaper, except that it doesn’t have the little Velcro type hooks. They soak up everything and confuse a child. When I decided that I was going to potty train, we went straight to Big Boy pants. I went and bought Cars & Toy Story pants because those are little man’s favorite.

The day that I started, I took Little Man by the hand and led him to the bathroom. I pointed to the toilet and told him that was a potty and that’s where we go tee-tee at. Initially, I wasn’t concerned with going #2. I was just aiming for tee-teeing in the toilet. I took his diaper off and set him on the seat. I didn’t use a cushioned seat or a plastic child’s potty. The way I figure, if you’re going to teach a child to potty, I believe they need to learn to potty where they are going to be pottying at on a regular basis. Plus, if I wanted to clean poop, I’d just do it out of a diaper. I have heard of two ways to seat little boys on the toilet, and both have been successful for us. Because of the tendency to ‘spray,’ I’ve heard of people turning little boys around backwards, facing the lid of the toilet. But for us, it just worked to set Little Man waaaay back on the seat, legs draped on each side. He was far enough back to not go everywhere, so it worked.

The first day of training, I took him to the bathroom every 10-15 minutes. Each time I asked him if he needed to tee-tee, and then when we got to the bathroom I told him that we were going to go tee-tee on the Big Potty. There were many, many accidents on Day 1. Lots of wet pants, lots of changing, but I never yelled or discouraged him. I clapped and told him how good he was doing when he went without wetting, and when we had an accident, I made sure to reassure him that it was ok.

Day Two went better. We still had accidents and I was still running to the bathroom every few minutes, but this time I was able to spread it out to about every 15-20 minutes. I continued with the questioning and the praise for going like he was supposed to. Day Three was our big test day. I read lots of places that day three is the make or break day…either a kid will remain interested and you’ve pretty much succeeded or they will lose the interest and you can hang it up. Day Three for us went as smoothly as days one and two. Little Man even successfully did number two on the potty. I spread out his bathroom trips to every 30 minutes or so and I started trying to take him when he agreed he needed to go.

Day Three was when he began to nod YES that he needed to potty or shake his head NO that he didn’t. I took him anyway when he said no and go nothing out of him, so I started trying to go by what he was saying. We only had 1 accident on Day Three.  Days four and five went similar, he would say yes or no to going and he slowly began to tell me that he needs to go in stead of me asking him. We are on Day Nine today and it’s going just as smoothly as it began.

I do continue to use diapers and bedtime and at nap-time, though I feel that our nap-time diaper will be going here in another week or so. Out of the last 4 days, he’s only woke up with a wet diaper once, and it was really only damp. Bed time I am not too concerned with. He’ll grasp the idea of not going at night eventually, but going during the day is what is most important to me.

I never offered candy as an incentive. I don’t believe that you should reward a child for doing something that they inevitably will HAVE to learn. Not to mention, I don’t like the idea of giving my son a piece of candy every time he potties because by the end of the day he’ll have had way more M&M’s than he needs.

Hope this provides some insight to those of you who have contacted me on the whole How did you get your son to potty train so early? issue. Like I said I am in NO way an expert. This is just what I found that worked for me. We are still learning over here in my neck of the woods. But right now we are at less than one accident per day and I’m not buying diapers…so, this is working great for us! Let me know if you have any questions!!

Hope you guys have a fantabulous Wednesday!!