Potty Training: Day 1

I was hoping to get to write this post last night, so that today's events wouldn't affect my opinion of yesterday, but..it didn't happen.

Day 1 didn't start out the way the book says to do it. Brooks had his 4 month well check up, and since his doctor is popular and you have to schedule well-checks well in advance to get in with him, I didn't want to reschedule. So we did that first thing in the morning, and began potty training when we got home around 10am. We (Brody, Carson and I) laid out the vinyl drop cloth that Matt picked up the night before.  The "plastic blanket" was a hit with them. Next, we all went in the bathroom and talked about how exciting it was for Carson to get to wear underwear. He picked a pair from the bucket we keep under the sink  and worked hard to get them on his chubby legs. (Apparently 2T-3T are a little small for my 2 1/2 year old. We'll be picking up a bigger size once we can leave the house.)

The underwear bucket we keep under the bathroom sink.

We played all morning on the plastic blanket. I tried to push fluids so the need to tee-tee would come up more often. But for some reason, he was not interested. He kept telling me "I'm not thirsty, Mommy." I even offered glasses of sweet tea, his fave. Still no interest. The book tells you to constantly remind them all day to tell you if they have to go, not to ask them if they have to go. So all day I felt like a lunatic saying "Remember to tell mommy if you need to go potty. Make sure you tell mommy if you need to tee-tee. Let's check and see if you're underwear are dry. Oh good they are! So remember to tell me..." He actually got very tired of it and even sighed one time before he said "Yes, they are dry." 

The only shot he would let me get of him in his underwear. 

We took a break from playing and watched a short movie. 

Don't you just love the drop cloth? So glad we thought of this. We can't get new carpet yet :)

The first time he had to go, he told me and we ran to the potty. He went a tiny bit, but who cares! Brody and I were so excited and gave him lots of praise and high fives. He then received a Mini M&M as a reward. This opened up a whole  new world for him. So you're telling me if I even drip in the toilet I get an M&M? For the next 2 hours he would tell me every 15 minutes he had to go. We'd run in there and he'd barely go and then ask for his prize. If they go even a tiny bit, you are supposed to reward them. So I tried to explain to him to only tell me he had to go if he really had to go. But at the same time, I couldn't figure out how to prevent him from doing this. And worse, Brody felt he needed a reward every time he went to the bathroom and he started doing the same thing. He's been potty trained for a year, but didn't see why Carson got a prize and he didn't. So, in order to avoid making an ordeal out of it, I just went along with it. But I did convince Brody to stop going when he didn't really need to.

I eventually had to put these in the kitchen cabinet. Having them in the bathroom was too tempting for them. (and the lighting in this bathroom is really yellow..hence the hideous pictures.)

At nap time, I went ahead and put a pull up on him. I just decided that I wasn't ready to attempt that right now. Maybe I'll regret it later, but he's typically pretty wet when he wakes up so I knew it would be a mess to deal with right now. After nap time, we had a lot of the same...refusing to drink more than he wanted, and never really going to the bathroom with a full bladder. He'd go more often and just have small releases. He never let himself get to the point of REALLY needing to go, so we never had a single accident the entire day. But I knew not to be excited about that. The real training comes when they really have to go, they start to pee on themselves, and are rushed to the bathroom. This teaches them the sensation of needing to go and how to control it. Going every 15 minutes when they don't really need to go doesn't teach them much, at least not in a quick fashion. 

So we went to bed that night with no accidents. Matt asked if Day 2 of potty training was going to be like week 2 on the Biggest Loser. I laughed and said yes, I was positive it was. You see, if you're a biggest loser fan you know that week 1, the contestants lose tons of weight and do awesome. Week 2 they usually don't lose much weight at all and are really disappointed with the results. I knew that day 2 would not be like day 1. While day 1 was actually really easy, I knew day 2 would bring on the REAL training. I expected him to start having the accidents one after another and we'd go through lots of underwear. And actually, I was hoping for that. Because I learned with Brody that until they reach the point of learning what it feels like to need to go and having accidents to learn how to hold it, they don't really learn what to do. And the process is prolonged. Coming up....day 2 :)