Adventures in Potty Training

Warning: This post contains NO pictures, just words!  If you’re a picture gazer, you may stop here. Many of the words are restroom speak using a toddler level vocabulary. Continue at your own risk!

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Way, way back – a long, long time ago….. we bought Miles his first little potty. Our plan was to acquaint Miles with what we hoped would soon be his little buddy!

From that time on, Miles would use his potty once a day or so, but here’s why:

Nate and Miles would go for a run most mornings of daddy daycare.  They would load up the jogging stroller with snacks, balls, and big jugs of ice water.  They would run a mile or so, play in a large grassy area along the Bronx River Path, and then run back.  Miles would drink a lot of water!  Upon their return, Nate would help Miles get ready for a shower and let him try to use the potty!  Typically, this was a successful attempt.

Great news, right!?  You would think that Miles was ready to go… Ahh, not so much!  Miles would never use the potty for me while we lived in NY. Once we moved to Chicago, even though he was placed on the potty at least once a day, he wouldn’t use the potty for ANYONE, until…..

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Miles and I went for a short little walk on Friday, October 8th.  We went to the bank, to Walgreens, and then back home.  Miles behaved so well that I purchased him a bottle of water with a flip-top opening.  He chugged that water the whole way home!!

When we got into the apartment, I asked him if he needed to go to the bathroom, and he said YES! He sat there for nearly 20 minutes, squirming and wiggling while we read lots of stories.  As was true in the past, when he couldn’t hold it anymore, he would start to cry and BEG for a diaper.  This time I decided to be a brat! I hugged (while holding him down on the potty) and told him everything would be ok.  “Relax little buddy.  This will be a lot easier for both of us if you stop fighting so much!”

The pain of “holding it” finally overwhelmed him to the point where we went in the potty!  MAN-did we ever PARTY!!!!  He was showered with hugs, kisses, stickers, and gummy worms. We put him in a pair of big boy underwear (Elmo, of course) and he kept them dry for the rest of the night.  He went 4 times total that evening. 

I was at a loss of words, but still put him in a diaper overnight.  We had plans to travel to Cedar Rapids this weekend and I was not prepared to take that show on the road! Sadly, we further regressed and left him in diapers for the weekend.

I attempted to start up again on Monday, but couldn’t get him into big boy underwear for anything!  I postponed until Tuesday.

Day 1: When he woke up, we swtiched him out of his diaper and started pushing the fluids!  I had stocked up on gatorade with a sports top, chocolate milk, bottled water, juice boxes, etc!  I had to keep the fluids going if we was going to learn the concept! (I did cut way back before nap and bedtime!!)

I had to do the “hugging/hold him down” thing again for the first potty of the AM, but that was the last time! I kept asking him every 20 minutes or so if he needed to go potty.  He did alright for his first day.  He had a few accidents, but had 4 successes!  He threw a fit around lunch time due to his need to go poo! Apparently, he NEEDED a diaper.  I gave in (I know, shame on me!) I put him in a diaper for naptime thinking he’d complete the task then.  However, he woke up without finishing he much needed ‘movement.’ Later that day, he did finally go “stinkys” in his little potty!  I’ve never seen that little man so excited!  Knowing that he never stays dry overnight, I put in him a pull-up at bed time.  A great first day!

Day 2: Same thing, just another day!  I left him in his big boy pants for naptime and he stayed dry! We ended this day with 5 successes and 1 accident!  I was impressed, but no BM’s! Tomorrow could be a rough day!

Day 3: Miles seemed to have this potty thing down!  We switched things up to get Miles to get the stinkys going. We have a potty ring and a little potty. Up until today, Miles wanted nothing to do with the ring, even thought it was Elmo. He would pee in the little potty, but I started to encourage Stinky attempts on the Elmo ring.  Miles is a bit of a perfectionist.  He has a specific method everything that he does!  This did the trick!  He Stinkied 3 times that day and pee’d 9 times.  All but 2 of those successes were from Miles telling me that he had to go to the bathroom. He stayed dry during his naptime too.  A whole day without any accidents and he wasn’t asking about stickers, rewards, or snacks either.  I was brave and decided to try leaving him in big boy underpants overnight.  This was a FAILed attempt.

Day 4: A day full of success, except for wetting during naptime.  I think the worst is over. Miles uses the Elmo ring exclusively now.  I’m not sure why….  We just need to stick with this! We were also back to pull-up at night.

Day 6 was the first time that we left the house with Miles. We took the ring with us and the day remained accident free.

It’s now been a week and a half.  I would consider him pretty close to trained! He averages 1 accident a day, 6-7 pee’s a day and 3-4 stinkys.  He loves to use the potty.  He stays dry at naptime, but still gets a pull-up at night.  He sleeps WAY to deep to get that working yet.  He’s starting to get a little distracted though.  His one accident a day is usually because he waits too long and I missed the “dance.” So far, he’s only been sitting.  I’m considering making the transition to standing, but fear that he may be a little short.  He insists on only using the big potty now.  We have a step stool for home, but what would we do in public?  I need to think a little longer…

We aren’t really able to take Cooper for walks yet.  When he’s got to go, we’ve got to find a restroom fast.  Our walks with Cooper usually get a little lengthy.  We are trying to increase our trips into public little by little. I try to keep the trips really short. We will probably have to take his little potty with us in the back of the car for long road trips. That won’t happen until Halloween weekend.

Miles’ 2nd birthday is Monday the 25th!  I would have loved to have gone to his 2 year old check up in White Plains, NY to tell his pediatrician that he was trained!  She informed me he should be between 3 and 4 before I should try to train him.  I remember leaving the office thinking – NO WAY!  He will be trained by 2 or shortly after! 

Yeah! We win! Doctors don’t know everything!

Speaking of which - his 2 year appt isn’t until November 4th!  You can expect an update about his growth sometime after that!

Special thanks to my resources:

Miles – the subject

Nathan – moral support

Mom - on speed dial, of course.

http://team-sullivan.blogspot.com/2010/04/adventures-in-potty-training-part-i.html

http://team-sullivan.blogspot.com/2010/04/adventures-in-potty-training-part-ii-my.html

http://thesamps.blogspot.com/2010/07/ready-set-go.html

Posted in: Miles