Potty Training a Toddler in Three Days... OR... How My 19 Month Old Potty Trained Himself! part 2

The Potty Training Begins....

If you  missed part one, click HERE

For a while  I have been offering Will a sticker when he goes to the bathroom in the toilet. He has a homemade sticker "chart" that he will run to and put his sticker on as soon as he is gets one. It sounds ridiculous that a toddler would even care about a sticker chart, but he goes wild over it. 

I have also been giving him ONE mini chocolate chip when he goes. So his reward for each and every time that he goes #1 or #2 is a sticker and a tiny chocolate chip (which he enthusiastically calls a 'bit'). The "experts" disagree about whether we should be offering rewards at all for potty training (some say yes, some say no, they should only be rewarded by their personal satisfaction), but it has certainly given him some external motivation.

When he has to go, he will usually scream "Mommy! Pee-pee! Sticker! Bit!" 

A few tips that I have read on different blogs and forums

1- Choose three days where you do not need to leave the house... at all (though I didn't follow this rule exactly, we did not HAVE to go out at those times, and would not have if he was having difficulty staying dry)

2- Choose a part of the house to hang out in with your little one. Preferably, it should be hardwood or tile (easy cleanup!) and keep lots of activities to keep them busy close-by. Put their potty in the middle of that room for easy access.

3- There are plenty of potty-training books aimed at toddlers at your local library- check a few out, watch youtube videos (there are potty-training cartoons), etc. to get your toddler used to the idea of potty training.

4- If they start to pee on the floor, say "uh-oh! We pee-pee in the potty!" (or some variation of that) and put them directly on the toilet. If they get even one drop in, you should give them the reward. Any success is considered a full success in this training period. 

Monday July 22, 2013

DAY 1

The necessary supplies, all lined up at the beginning of day #1

In the morning, I started by removing his overnight diaper and leaving him clothes-free from the waist down. I told him that he doesn't need diapers during the day anymore, and that he should use his potty. I also pointed out where his little potty would be during the day. I asked some specific questions so I could be sure he heard and understood what I told him ("Where is the potty? What do you do in the potty?" and since he was able to answer, I moved on)

I had read MULTIPLE places to push juice on your potty training kid. Will has never had juice, and I thought he would love it. Juice has a high sugar content and that property will help them have to pee a TON. This is great in reinforcing the need to use the toilet... in theory. He hated the juice I originally bought (just a basic 100% apple juice), so I had J go back out and buy even junkier juice (V-8 splash,  used to be my favorite as a kid!)  hoping that it would work. Nope, he hated it. He ended up downing tons of milk over the three days, and he was happy. Whatever works, I guess. Push juice, milk or water- have a cup around at all times and offer it to them often. Popsicles work too! 

On this day, I asked him a LOT if he had to go. He would answer with a "yes" or a "no" pretty accurately and ended up going about once an hour on average. He went several times completely unprompted by us as well.

He had one accident in the morning, and one in the afternoon. He had 12 successful potty trips that day. 

Tuesday July 23, 2013

DAY 2

Will's first diaper-free trip to the store! 

I started him off naked from the waist down again today, planning to introduce underwear that afternoon if he did well. He had no accidents in the morning, and then I split out for a mommy-break to the movies! J made him lunch and put him down for a nap. I ended up getting home before
he woke up, and we put underwear on him then. I let him pick out the pair that he wanted, and told him that he was "wearing big boy underwear, just like daddy!" That seemed to make him very happy. We decided to run to the store to get a few school supplies for J since Will had done so well. I was more than a little nervous and packed an extra pair of underwear and shorts. 

The underwear that he chose had "tow mater" from the CARS movies on them. He had just watched a short cartoon about him, and was really excited that he was on his underwear. I kept reminding him to keep tow mater dry, and that seemed to do the trick. 

I offered the toilet when we first arrived to our destination, and while he said he had to go, he actually didn't. We ended up being away from home over an hour, and he stayed completely dry! He also had no accidents in the afternoon. 

If he didn't go every hour or so, I'd tell him to let me know when he needed to use the bathroom, which seemed to work pretty well. He went 11 times with no accidents all day. 

Wednesday July 24, 2013

DAY 3

Today was our first day that J had to work, so I was a bit nervous. I continued the underwear thing today, and he wore shorts quite a bit as well (when he went outside with J for a while and later on when we ran errands together).

My goal for today was to prompt him as little as possible and hope that he told me on his own when he had to go. It worked out relatively well, but being the control-freak that I am, I still asked a few times if I thought it had been too long since he last went.

He had no accidents in the morning, and we ran errands after his nap. We went to the bank, lunch,  Party City and Dollar Tree and he stayed dry! I told him several times to keep his underwear dry, and he did. I started to get very anxious on our way home because he yelled "PEE-PEE!" from the backseat. I told him to wait just a minute and we'd be home quickly- he did, and we were. 

My parents came over to see him tonight, and he was having so much fun that he began to have a little accident. He let a very small amount of urine out and then stopped himself- it was hilarious to see the momentary look of panic on his face. I ran him to the bathroom so he could finish and he got his reward.

So, today he had one (partial) accident and 15 successes.

One week later...

So it has been a week since we first started potty training! It does seem like more time has passed, because Will is a potty champ! He has had a couple partial accidents since the first potty training day where he started to go while running to the potty (this seems to happen when he is playing and doesn't want to stop- normal toddler/preschooler behavior! I don't expect that to stop anytime soon).
We have had numerous outings in the last week, and he has stayed dry with no accidents throughout all of them.

When we do go out, I bring a small zippered wet-bag (sold for cloth diapering purposes, but perfect for this too!). If you don't have one, a ziplock bag should do. I include an extra pair of shorts and underwear in the wet-bag it stays in my purse all the time, just in case. I also have started carrying POST-IT notes- apparently, you stick one over the auto-flush toilets and it will stop the flush from scaring the heck out of your newly potty trained kid.

Potty Training a Toddler in Three Days... OR... How My 19 Month Old Potty Trained Himself! part 1

WARNING: If you are not the parent of a young child, you will probably not appreciate this post. There will be plenty of "potty talk!"

To anyone who may have to potty train in the future, this is for you. I will start out by saying that I am NOT an expert, this is only what we did. There are plenty of options out there for buying books about potty training in 3 days, but that isn't what we did (not to say I didn't consider it! I wanted to try it on our own first).

I will start at the beginning, because I think it has played a vital role in Will's potty training. We started out cloth diapering  at birth. It was mainly for monetary reasons (when I heard the savings were in the THOUSANDS, I was sold!), but I had also heard that cloth diapering can often produce young potty trainers- the cloth diapers do not wick away moisture like disposables do. As they get older, they can associate the sensation of needing to urinate with the result of a wet diaper.

Around 9 months, when Will started to really get some solid foods down, I started to recognize his #2 cues. Moms of toddlers, you know what I am talking about... red faced and grunting, it's pretty obvious. There are lots of cloth diaper options for dealing with poop, but I hated my sprayer and didn't want to deal with that. I bought a potty seat (http://www.amazon.com/Prince-Lionheart-weePOD-Basix-Berry/dp/B005ZBI03I) for our toilet (it is soft versus hard plastic, so he didn't mind sitting on it- sort of like a BUMBO in material. Target also sells them), and starting putting him on there regularly when he had to go #2. I would also put him on it before a bath sometimes, and many times he would urinate, too.

Fast forward to about 13 months, and he would run to our bathroom door (that we always kept closed) and start knocking. He started to recognize his clues on his own for #2 and would let me know when he needed to go.

Around this time, I bought a couple of "little" potty seats so that he could sit and go without me needing to hover over him, and make sure that he didn't fall off of the regular toilet. IKEA has some amazing seats (for cheap!) so I bought a couple of those.

THIS one is under $5 and

THIS is my favorite at just under $10.

At 15 months, he also started letting us know when he needed to "pee-pee." He would be fully diapered, and he would verbally let us know that he needed to use the toilet. I would remove his diaper, and he would often go. I started researching early potty training around this time, and all of the cues that they recommended were there. He was verbal, he was very interested and aware of what was going on with his body. I wanted to start the process around then, but around the same time decided to babysit an older child over the Summer. That sort of ended my potty training plans, because what 10 year old boy wants to see a naked toddler running around?!

Will also started getting increasingly irritated when we would be out and about, and he "couldn't" use the potty. J and I would remind him that he had a diaper on and tell him to just GO in the diaper. He was not happy. I realized that we were encouraging exactly what we didn't want to- we were telling him to ignore the feeling of needing to go to the bathroom, and his desire to stay dry. I was afraid this would backfire on me later on, and decided to do the three day method while we were on a babysitting break... which brings me to today!

We just completed day three, and I kept some records throughout those days to write about our experience... which will be my next post!

Potty Training a Toddler in Three Days... OR... How My 19 Month Old Potty Trained Himself! Part 2