Potty Training our Toddler

We officially started potty training with Evan while we were in Australia in December.  Since both John and I were off work and around him all the time, we thought this would be the best time to give it a go. Plus we had the help of his Nana too, which she helped a lot (having cleaned her fair share of his soiled underwear and other soiled things too!).

We didn't try any special method for potty training (perhaps we should have), but we just casually started doing it.  I was kind of hoping that by swapping his diaper for underwear he'd not like having wet or dirty pants and learn quickly that way.  No dice.  He dropped some dookies around Nana's house (sorry Nana!) during times he was running around naked and we had to clean his underwear a fair amount of times too.  I finally said enough with that.  We had to invoke a poo treat...now he gets candy (one little Hershey's kiss) if he goes poo poo in the potty.  Bribery?  Sure.  But it has really started to work I think, since he's been doing really good and telling us if he needs to poo.

Now, I can't say the same for going wee in the potty.  He seemed to get better at it while we were in Australia, but then he'd still have accidents while sitting on the couch (sorry Sarah) or he'd just let it flow when he was playing outside or where ever.  He liked weeing outside actually, which he was allowed to do a few times (probably not a great idea during potty training looking back on it), and he also seemed to prefer standing to wee in the toilet while we were at Nana's house.  Either way, it wasn't a perfect process.

And once we got home, it seemed he regressed even more on the potty training.  He still will wee in his diaper/pull up or underwear and won't think much of it.  Even if it's just in his underwear he'll still do it, but he will tell us he wet his pants (pretty obvious at that point!).  I think that since we've swapped back and forth a lot between his underwear and pull ups that it hasn't helped.  However, when we'd go out and about in Australia we always put him in a pull up to avoid messes while we were away from the house.  And now that we're home we do the same, as well as for daycare (she doesn't want them out of pull ups or diapers until they are fully potty trained...can you blame her!?).  So, he gets away with weeing in his pants on occasion because it doesn't leak everywhere and make him feel really wet (although the pull ups advertise it gives a wet feeling, more so than a diaper would I guess?).  Nonetheless, I also recently decided he needed some kind of treat as a reward for weeing on the potty and keeping his pants dry, and since he had started getting into stickers, I figured they would do the trick.  So now when he keeps his pants dry and uses the potty he gets a sticker.  I had a big pack of tiny little boyish stickers (from the dollar store...woot!) that is working out great for this.  Sure, we find them in strange places around the house, but I'll take that over having to shampoo wet wee'd on carpets and change his underwear multiple times a day.

Granted, even the wee treats don't always seem to be enough of a positive reinforcement, since he still wees in his pants/pull up, but we are making progress.  In fact, just yesterday morning Evan woke up, came down to our room and laid in our bed with us for a bit, and then told us on his own accord that he needed to wee.  As I was getting him undressed he told me he had kept his diaper dry.  Sure enough, he had kept his diaper from overnight completely dry and then had a really long wee in the toilet!  What a big boy!

So, we're still working on this, but I hope it will get easier soon.  For now we just need to stay on top of asking/reminding him to use the potty.  The hurdles ahead will include him getting over his fear of using a public toilet (so far he throws tantrums when we try to take him to use the potty while we're out in public, even more of a reason why having the pull up on is needed for us to avoid the inevitable accidents), and him being able to go a full day keeping his pants dry.  There have been a few days that he's been close, but none that have been a complete success yet.

On a funny note, however, he thinks that when anyone gets candy it's because they went poo on the potty.  I got a kick out of him playing Cut the Rope on his Nabi recently when he told me that Om Nom (a little creature that likes to get candy after you cut the ropes to allow it to fall in his mouth) got the candy because he went poo poo on the potty.  Good job Om Nom...now just inspire my boy to keep up with that as well! :)