Friday, October 26, 2012

Potty training


This last time I blogged about potty training was 2 months ago, which was 2 days into the process.  Those first few days were rough as he figured it all out - I think we went through 14 pairs of underwear in one day.  Then, just about 2 weeks into it, he informed us that "he doesn't pee on the floor.  He pees in the potty."  From that moment on, with us anyways, he had no pee accidents.  He struggled at daycare (and was still in pullups there for another week.)  We realized that when in the pullups he knew that he could just pee in them, so we switched him to underwear at school too.  He had a few accidents, but they were mostly because even though he's sitting down to pee, he had some aim issues - that's hard for a little boy!  Over the next few weeks he managed to master that.  At the same time he became really independent about everything and told us to leave him along when he went to the potty and that he'd do it all himself.  He now goes into the bathroom by himself, turns the light on, gets his pants and underwear down, and goes potty.  Then he'll ask us (er, yell for us, demand) that we come in to help him pull his pants back up.

So for the last 5 weeks or so he's been completely pee potty trained.  It doesn't seem to matter where we're at or what we're doing - including in the middle of swim class! - he'll tell us he has to go.  At some point in there we switched him to underwear for naps and overnight - and he's never had an accident with that either, which completely amazed us.

The biggest struggle has been with pooping - he seemed to know he was going to because he'd tell us to leave whatever room he was in so he could go in his pants.  Not fun to clean up!  Luckily (for us!) he seemed to poop in his pants mostly at daycare, while out on the playground.  I felt bad for them though!  Then exactly 2 weeks ago he seemed to get the pooping thing too.  He mostly goes in the evenings now, although sometimes at school, but always in the potty.  He has been 100% accident free for 2 weeks! 

We were so shocked and so proud of well he did with all of this.  I won't lie - we bribed - a lot .... m&ms, new trucks that he could only play with if he peed in the potty, then only if he pooped in the potty that day.  In fact, he still gets 2 m&ms when he poops, and if he remembers, 1 mini m&m if he pees.  We also did sticker charts for awhile - he got 1 sticker every time he peed and when he filled the chart up (25 stickers) he got a new toy (matchbox car.)  I felt like that rewarded him immediately, but also gave him a reason to keep doing it as he earned the stickers for a toy.  We don't do that anymore for peeing, but are filling the last one up with poop stickers.

We are just so so proud of him!!!

1 comment:

Anne Bohle said...

That photo is fantastic! Little boy underwear might be the cutest things ever!
Way to go, Luke!