So, last Thursday, I decided to attempt Potty Training. Prior to Atticus leaving daycare at WEE School, I was determined to try the "3 day potty training" and get this part of our lives done. He was already tee-teeing in the potty at school 2-3 times a day between diapers. However, after reading more and more about it, I have changed my mind. Most seem to require that you spend an entire 3 days solid watching his every move or sitting on the potty every 20 minutes or so. And while I am sure it works, that process is really hard to do with a newborn who needs to be rocked and fed also. It's also hard to find 3 days that we do not have something going on outside of the house. So, between that and after talking to some friends who potty train slowly, I have decided for the time being to slowly potty train as well.
So, this past Thursday, we woke up, had breakfast and then put Atticus into some Mickey Mouse underwear. I put him on the potty immediately so we could go to the bathroom and hopefully poop right away, as is his usual schedule. Well, we waited and read our new book, and waited some more and had no luck. So, I got him down, talked to him about telling mama when he needs to tee-tee or poop and we went about our day. Now, I was still watching him looking for signs of him needing to go. About 10 minutes later he says "uh-oh" and I see a puddle on the floor. I thought he dropped his water, but no. It was his first underwear accident. So, we immediately clean it up, head to the potty, take off the Mickey Mouse underwear, grab a book and wait for him to finish his business. We wait about 5 minutes and he has not gone. I am wondering if he is done for awhile since he just went on the floor. So, we have the same "tell mama when you need to go" conversation, get down, put on another pair of Mickey Mouse underwear and head back to the playroom. Not 10 minutes later, he says "uh-oh" and sure enough, another puddle. So begins our routine again: clean puddle, sit on potty, read books, wait for nothing to happen, get new underwear, and go back to the living room. This happened 2 more times. In about 2 hours, we potty on the floor 4 times and a couple of times just wet our underwear and not once did we go in the potty. Well, we did potty once - but barely. I decided I needed to somehow introduce the Potty Treat as a means of a reward. So, I used that miniscule tee-tee to count as a potty success. We sat on the potty longer and longer each time reading books or telling stories or singing. Thankfully, Grace is an angel baby and just plays and hangs out. However, during this, I am seeing why the 3 day plan would be a lot of work and would definitely require full attention with Atticus making it hard to take care of Grace as well. After our total of 2.5 hours, we had gone through the Mickey Mouse underwear and moved onto Toy Story and still not had a real potty success yet. And side note: how can he tee-tee SO often?
I did, however, realize that after every time he tee-teed in his underwear he would tell me by saying "uh-oh" so he knows what is going on and this gives me hope. And, good or not good, he didn't poop all day long, until the next day. I must have confused him so much that his body just didn't have its routine.
By the end of this time period, his words and phrases included "no tee-tee floor; tee-tee potty" and "potty treats". Side note: his potty treats are chocolate covered raisins. I needed a treat that he has never had before so it would be a big deal to have them. Vic thought this was very ironic for potty training...I'm sure you can see why. BOYS! I never even thought of that!
I'm not going to lie. After the 2.5 hours of potty training, it was lunchtime and I put him in his chair for lunch and decided I'd just clean up the mess when he made it in his chair. Did you know that he did not potty in his underwear during his entire lunch? And for naptime, he just got a diaper.
I was seriously worn out. This tells me that potty training will have to be slow. But, I need to find a way to be more consistent. So, we will keep working on it.
And I have to admit; he sure does look cute running around in his Mickey or Toy Story underwear!
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