Day 3 - Hard Descisions

So yesterday was easy. Too easy. Even though I loved the fact that I didn't have to clean the floors once, I knew that easy was not the way to go - it doesn't teach him anything. I can put him on the potty at the 45 minute mark, or like today, the hour mark, and reach the end of the day with almost no accidents, but putting him on the potty doesn't teach him what peeing feels like or give him a chance to initiate heading to the potty himself.

So today, I made a hard decision. Hard, that is, for my knees and my sciatic nerve, which in turns means hard for my body. (Doing this while being 7 months pregnant is not the ideal time, but I'm hoping it's easier than doing it with a newborn.) Starting at about 3 this afternoon, and all day tomorrow (and from then on unless I figure out it's not working), I'm letting him just go when he wants. This goes against the fibers of my being (I'm a very scheduled person) but it just makes the most logical sense to me. This is how I came to my decision.

Seeing as there is next to nothing out there on potty training early (yes, there's ton of evidence that it happens, but the exact how-to manual seems to be missing) I've been going at this with just my thoughts to guide me and a few tips here and there. But today, I got a tip that I really liked. And the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. The tip/advice came from a woman who has 4 children, 3 of them boys, and had them all potty trained early. This is what she told me she did:

"My theory that always worked(4 x's) was going cold turkey! No pull ups, no diapers, just underwear and clothes...And then they realize when they go and get the connection. It took about 4 or 5 days of saying 'that's ok next time go in the potty chair!' Lots of washing, but it worked! Matt was 18 mths! Basically I just let him figure it out on his own."

So this is what I'm going to do. It's going to be lots of washing, I know, but hey, if it gets me to where I'm wanting to go, I'll do it! There are a few thoughts that come with this...the first being - why didn't I start out this way?! I could be on day 3 of 5 right now!! But then I realize that this is all a learning process - both for him and for me. I had to have the first 2 days to figure out his schedule and to realize what little things did and didn't work. So now I know that he pees about every hour. And I know that he knows that pee is supposed to go in the potty. I also know that he hasn't made the connection between feeling 'the urge' and actually peeing yet. Hopefully that will come with this new regime.

So here is how today went. You'll notice most of the 'accidents' pretty much happened after the 3:00 mark...

8:30 - on the potty and peed.
9:50 - peed on the floor - L - sat him on the potty for 5 minutes
10:50 - on the potty
10:58 - peed M
11:00 - nap. Woke dry.
12:35 - up from nap, on the potty, peed right away M
1:30 - peed some point during lunch
2:10 - put him on the potty because he started to strain (and we all know what that means...)
2:15 - pooped in the potty!
3:00 - on the potty again and he peed right away M
4:06 - first accident that I knew was coming. He just stood there once it happened. I think I needed to have him in more clothes for it to be effective instead of just underwear.
4:30 - nap. Woke dry.
6:20 - wet himself. This was the hardest part for me. Knowing he was going to pee since he was newly up and dressed in clean/dry underwear and sweats...
7:35 - wet himself again. He knows it, too, which is good. When I asked him if he was wet, he put his hand to his crotch area and said 'yes'.

Tomorrows time line, if I even do a post, will probably just reflect the times that he wet himself since I'm not going to be putting him on the potty. The next big post will be when, Lord willing, he initiates going on his own...hopefully that will come sooner rather than later!

A nice thing about this whole 'clothes on' method is that none of the pee gets to the floor, it's all soaked up by the training pants and sweats!! :) (It's the little things, right?)

Day 2

Today went really well. I think I have the schedule thing down, now it's just going to be the challenge of getting him to realize he has to go. He knows to pat himself (if you know what I mean) when he has to go, but it's not consistent at all...in fact, it's only happened a couple times. So I think I'll start working on incorporating the 'sign' for that in the next few days.

I did solidify a thought I had yesterday, though. As you'll see, we had a day of almost no accidents. And the accidents we did have, we're really full on accidents. Just little dribbles in the underwear. My reasoning? All because he got 'scared' out of finishing peeing. We inadvertently were checking his potty (with him sitting on it) while he was mid stream and that was that - he stopped. So during dinner, he went a little, and then when he went in the potty later on, it was only a little amount. And then 30 minutes after that, there was more dribble in the underwear (although, that could be due, too, to him running into the table and him crying...) Anyways...I now firmly hold to the idea that if he pees on accident and doesn't fully empty his bladder, we're due for some clean ups.

The other 'big thing' that happened today was he pooped on the potty! He has done this before, but it was still neat to have it happen today. We worked with 45 minutes intervals today, and I think I'm moving to hour intervals tomorrow - and there are a few reasons why. 1) We sat longer today than we did yesterday for him to go and when he peed, it was all about an hour apart. 2) Maybe cutting it closer to the 'go' mark will allow him to really feel what it feels like and give him an opportunity to tell me. More clean ups guaranteed with this method, but I think it may work out. And if it's too much trouble, I'll go back tot he 45 minutes since that's easy and it works.

Here is what today's 'charting sheet' looked like:

7:30 - on the potty after breakfast

7:35 - peed! M

8:20 - on the potty

8:30 - peed! H

9:20 - on the potty

9:50 - peed! H

10:15 - back on the potty before nap just to try and see if anything else came out - no go.

10:30 - nap. Woke dry!!

12:15 - up from nap, on potty right away, and rewarded with a bowl-full!! H

12:20 - lunch. dry.

1:00 - on the potty.

1:03 - pee and POOP

1:50 - on potty

2:05 - peed! H

2:50 - on the potty

2:55 - peed! H

3:00 - nap. woke dry.

5:00 - up from nap, on potty right away, peed right away! H

5:45 - on potty.

5:50 - peed! M (this is where he was interrupted mid-stream)

Dinner - little wet afterward, but not much

6:30 - on potty

6:50 - peed! M

7:10 - dribble in underwear directly after walking in to the kitchen table. We sat him on the potty to reinforce that peepee goes in the potty

7:20 - peed! L

8:00 - on potty. Peed. M

Day 1

Here is how today went.

7:30 - Evan woke up and we had some breakfast.

8 - Changed out of jammies and started to sit on the potty. For over an hour. I knew that it would take him a while to pee since he had probably gone as soon as he was awake, but I didn't want to have him just playing and then pee, so I sat him until it came. Well, we sat there for an hour and 15 minutes. He would get up here and there, but then he'd come and sit back down. We read, sang songs, put pieces into a puzzle, pushed a dump truck back and forth...it's amazing how he knows how to scoot around on his little potty without getting up. He was over all pretty content.

9:15 - He gets off his potty. He walks over to the oven and does something I have never seen him do. He not only touched, but pushed in the knob/dial for one of the burners. I clapped my hands together to get his attention and told him "no touch". And then it happened. Out came a nice long stream of pee. So then I was faced with a decision. I didn't want to scold him for peeing since that's what I'd been trying to get him to do, but I didn't want to praise him for going on the floor, either. So I did something in the middle. I excitedly told him that he was peeing, but that it goes in the potty. He seemed to know that he hadn't peed where he was supposed to since he didn't clap or anything like he normally does when he pees in the potty.

9:16 - I cleaned up and put his 'big boy pants' on. He played for an hour and I wrote thank you notes for Christmas gifts.

10:20 - Back on the potty, this time only for about 3 minutes! He peed right away and we clapped and praised him and he was so excited!

10:30 - nap time with a diaper on...and he woke up dry 90 minutes later!

12:05 - After he so nicely peed for me, a big full potty-full, we ate lunch. Sometime during this time, he peed (to be expected, I think), and I'm very thankful I had put the plastic cover on over his underwear! For some reason, I thought it would be good to pump him full of fluids...mistake #1.

1:15/1:55/2:15 - he wet himself while playing. At first, I just thought, "ok, so I need to put him on the potty sooner after he finishes lunch. no big deal". The second time around, I thought, "hmm...ok, maybe we need to go to 30 minutes instead of 45", the third time, I realized maybe 20 minutes was the magic time...

2:30 - on the potty just in case he peed before the 20 minute mark, and bingo, he went within minutes.

2:55 - On the way to the potty, as in, we're about to sit down and the potty is only a mere 2 inches away...he pees. Not sure why this happened. Maybe it was because I was talking about it. Maybe it was a fluke. I don't know, but I'm not counting it as a full-on accident, that's for sure.

3:00 - Nap time for him with a diaper. Down time for me -- away from the kitchen/dining area. The plan now is to go back to letting him drink like normal, which is NOT as much as he's been drinking this afternoon, and try to sense his schedule from there. The whole on-the-potty-every-20-minutes thing is not going to go over very well. At least not until he gets a better grasp of what 'the urge' feels like!

4:45 - Woke up wet, but that was ok. We chilled for a little bit (he wakes up slowly) and then..

5:00 - Sat on the potty. Had to wait a bit just like this morning. But...

5:20 - He peed!

5:30 - Since he was 'empty', I decided to go ahead and feed him (with the plastic pants on, again!) He ended up staying dry (partly due to the fact I didn't give him liquid until after he was done with his meal....

6:10 - Back on the potty.

6:30 - He peed!

7:15 - Back on the potty for one last time...

7:20 - Out came the pee!!

Total Score: Accidents: 4. Times on the potty: 6. Halfways ("accidents" that ended up making it in the potty): 2


Overall, I would say today went well. The Lord was good and I didn't get frustrated. Let's hope this keeps up...it is only day one. I learned a lot, was totally blown away by how well he did for the first day -- I wasn't honestly expecting him to pee in the potty at all today -- and realized what makes him 'go'(as in, when he's surprised, he pees). Today was just supposed to be a day of figuring out what his little rhythm was, and I think I've found it -- 45 - 60 minutes. For us, pumping him full of fluids isn't going to be the way I go. I'm going to treat the liquids as though it were any other day, but just put him on the potty every 45 minutes. It worked this morning and this evening just fine, so that's what I'm going with for now.

Another thing I learned was that when Evan had an accident, he would stop peeing once I either made a sound or he realized what was going on. This was insightful for 2 reasons. It showed me that he could stop his stream, and it also clued me into the fact that he wasn't totally emptying his bladder - hence the multiple accidents one right after the other this afternoon.

Some things that were really helpful today:

• Knowing ahead of time I would be in one area of the house and leaving things for me to do in that area to keep me busy
• Having only a few toys out for today and then changing them out for tomorrow so they're all 'new'
• Only looking at a few books at a time while on the potty
• Getting really creative for the sitting on the potty time
• Charting our progress!! I can't stress this enough. Each child will have their own natural schedule and it's best to go with that. It will also be nice to see patterns day after day, and be able to took back and see how far we've come!
  
• Charting when he drank - doing more of this tomorrow!
  
• Charting the amount of pee by L, M, or H (Low, Medium, High) to clue me into how much he's gone and if he has fully emptied himself. IE: all the times he peed on the potty, he peed a lot - that's an "H". All the accidents were very small - those were all marked as "L".
• Soup week!! I knew when I would be starting to train (generally speaking) and so I've been doubling soups I make for the past 6 weeks and putting the other half in the freezer. makes dinners really easy when there's not a lot of time to make it!

Our challenge: Figuring out how he's going to tell us he has to pee. But that has to come after he grasps what 'the urge' is...you see our difficulty.

And the journey begins...

I have just finished prepping my main floor (the only floor in my house with all wood or tile) for our first day of potty training tomorrow. All my rugs are up. The potty is in the corner. My kitchen table is against the wall to give us more play room (amazing how much extra space that gives us). The newly upholstered kitchen chairs that he so loves to climb on are in the living room. The baby gate is ready to go up in the hallway so he can't get to the living room because I didn't want to take up that rug or worry about my furniture. All his board books and wood or easily cleanable toys are within very easy access (thank you, Santa!). I have my bottle of Green Works and cleaning cloths handy, too. The house is ready. Am I?

All day, I've been thinking to myself: am I crazy?! And no, I know I'm not. But right now, the eve of the first training day, I'm a little nervous. There are no books out there to practically tell you how this is supposed to go because it seems like no one does it any more. All I have is word of mouth accounts, and older people encouraging me by telling me that they all had their kids trained early. Yes, I know it's possible, but it's not much help when I have questions like "Do I leave him in underwear or with nothing?"

So here is the plan. And as we parents know, even the best laid plans are sometimes futile. I want to have him get used to the underwear, so I'm going to have him wear them unless we're in the 'sitting on the potty every 10 minutes because he hasn't gone in over an hour' stage. He doesn't like things around his ankles when he's sitting anyways. But, once he goes pee, I'm going to put the underwear on, I think, and then we'll just play by the potty for 45 minutes until I have him sit down again. I'm not going to pump him with salt so he drinks more, but I'll tell ya what...he will be drinking more than normal I'm sure.

Hopefully by this time tomorrow (at which point I hope to update again on how we did) I will still have hair. I know in my head that this will all be fine, but right now, I'm just wondering how I'll get to the end. When I swam competitively, my favorite race was the mile. Crazy, I know, but I loved the even strokes, the rhythm, watching the bubbles fly off my hand, the turn, the push, the glide, the first big gulp of air. I feel like I'm on the starting block and tomorrow's alarm will be the gun to get me in the water. There's no turning back. I have to just keep pushing through. Even when my lungs start to burn and my legs feel like Jello, I just have to keep kicking and pulling. Or, for our current situation, even when I've cleaned pee off the floor a dozen times, and I haven't seen anything by the 4 walls in my house for 6 days, and we're still having more accidents than successes...I have to keep being encouraging. Keep smiling. And eventually, Lord willing, he'll get it.

So until tomorrow...

Surprised and Shocked

Today we had a little shocking surprise! About 11 this morning, Evan came to me with his little potty and looked at me with some great intent. I asked him if he had to go potty and his response was not only a yes, but he put the potty down and kept looking at me. This was all surprising because we haven't started going potty any other time than before bed! So what was I to do? I got down on my hands and knees, moved the potty to hard flooring, and took his little pants and diaper off. What do ya know, but the kid sat down, pushed, and out came pee! Not a whole bowl full, but it was an immediate response to what we were doing!! This gives me great hope. Maybe when I start the hard core training in a couple weeks (projected start date is Dec 28th) it won't be as challenging. And then again, today may have been a weird fluke...

Pooping in the Potty

Today marks the first day of Stage 3 for potty training! Pooping on the potty! Since I haven't given my 'stages' out yet, here they are:

Stage 1: getting him used to the potty
Stage 2: having him go potty consistently at night before bed
Stage 3: pooping in the potty
Stage 4: 'hard core' training with underpants


This morning was a success! When Evan started to strain, I was ready with the potty nearby. I stripped him down and explained to him that we poop on the potty now. He sat down, popped, and got up. SOOOO much easier than a poopy diaper! Thankfully, he is a consistent morning pooper, so I think as long as I'm watchful, we'll get the hang of it and maybe, just maybe, he'll start coming to me to tell me instead of me having to grab him. I'll keep you updated.

How we Got Started

Here is what getting started on this whole potty training journey has looked like for us. (For some background and goals, scroll all the way down)

First of all, I bought the Baby Bjorn Little Potty. I chose this potty seat for a few reasons.
1) In order to eliminate, a child needs to have both feet flat on the floor. It has to do with the fact that if their feet are dangling, then their stomach is tightened and they can't relax enough to let anything out. Most potty seats in stores right now are too high for these little guys and they sometimes have a hard time getting on them without help.
2) It's one piece of plastic!! Most potty seats out there have lids, and sliding 'pots', and all sorts of cracks and crevices to keep and trap old urine - yuck! This is so simple to clean! I also bought a box of paper coffee pot liners to put in there for when he poops! Works like a charm!
3) The price was right! For the price of some of the singing and clapping potties, I was able to buy 3 Little Potty seats on Amazon! One for each floor of the house, and then eventually, one will stay in the car.

The Timeline

When Evan was 12 months old I started keeping the potty seat in the bathroom and having him sit on it fully clothed whenever I would use the bathroom. I talked about what I was doing and pretty soon, he knew that when we went into the bathroom, he sat down on his potty, too. I did this so that he would not only get used to seeing the potty, but also sitting on it.

When he was 13 months old, I started sitting him on the potty at night before bed with no diaper. We started off with staying seated for maybe a minute or two at a time and then he would want to get up. After about a month of being consistent with him and not forcing him to sit, but just encouraging him to stay there (we would sing, read books, play peek-a-boo) we were sitting on the potty for up to 20 minutes before bed. We didn't have our first success until he was about 14 and half months.

So it was 6 weeks of sitting with nothing coming out, but it was so worth it. For the last 2 months, he has pretty much gone on the potty 6 out of every 7 nights. There are times where we have 3 nights go by with nothing, but that's no big deal. At first, it would take 10 minutes to get anything out. We're at the point now where I can tell him that we're going to go up stairs (2 flights) and go pee and he holds it until we get there and then he sits and pushes and out comes the pee! It's amazing what they know to do. The nights where this doesn't happen are days when he hasn't had enough to drink, or hasn't had anything to drink the last 2 hours, or the bathtub is running and he's really distracted. We don't reward him, either, for going. Not in the tangible sense that is. Being so young, he still thrives off of doing what we want, and us being happy about it. (A plus of starting young) So we clap and and say 'yay!' and give him a high five. We dump the pee in the big toilet and let him flush it down and say 'bye bye'.

Now that we're at the 17 month point, I am going to start on the pooping aspect of training. He is very aware of when he poops and since he strains and grunts, it's easy to spot, too. I know he is aware of it because he'll come to me after he poops and I'll ask him "Did you poop?" and he he'll point to his diaper and say something that to him must sound like 'poop'. So this next month my goal is to catch him when he starts to grunt or strain and put him strait on the potty. Like I mentioned before, I bought little paper coffee maker filters that fit inside the potty perfectly. The few times he's pooped in the potty, it has made clean-up so much easier!

I also chose 18 months to start the hard-core potty training (ie: locking myself in the house for 2 weeks and sitting him on the potty every hour on the hour type deal) because he turns 18 months right after the New Year and I didn't want to have to deal with all the holiday hub-bub on top of keeping track of his potty training. Do what's best for you and your family. If you're going on a family trip, wait til you get back! If you're on the fence, but your child shows that he's ready and you have 2 weeks with nothing to do, just get started! I will be posting daily when we start that part of the process.

Things you'll need to get started.
A potty seat - preferably one that sits close to the ground
Little underwear - I bought Hanes 2T cotton underpants and just washed them in hot water and shrunk them (my guy is still on the little side of things). I chose Hanes, though, because they were shorter (length from waist to bottom of crotch area) by about 2 inches than the Fruit of the Loom kind.
Plastic covers - this is so that when your child is in the hard core potty training process, you're not stuck having to clean up all the accidents, or at least not to the extent if you didn't have them!
Patience - Kindness - Gentleness - Consistency - Someone to relieve you when you want to pull your hair out

I know this all may sound like a lot of work, but really, what is 15 minutes added into their bedtime routine to get things rolling? Just make it fun for them and they'll want to do it because you do it! Good luck!

Background and Goal

Hello! I am sitting here at my computer tonight with the goal of starting this blog in hopes that at least one other parent can benefit from it. Potty training is not something to be taken lightly. It is a task that takes effort, patience, and persistence. Once you start, there is no going back.

I have decided to potty Evan early for a couple reasons. Reason 1 - I am pregnant and don't really want 2 kiddos in diapers! Reason 2 - My aunts, uncles, parents, brother, and myself were all trained by or right around 18 months, so I know it's possible no matter what other people tell me. Reason 3 - With reason 1 and 2 in mind, I don't want to have to pay for another 18 months worth of diapers if I don't have to!

I have done extensive research on when to potty train and the 2 schools of thoughts are either early (18-21 months) or later (2 1/2 - 3yrs) - there doesn't seem to be much for the in between time frame. People who like to potty train early do so because their child has shown signs of being mature enough (more on that below), and in general, the parents want to cut down on cost or waste. People in the older camp want to generally wait until the child really shows they are interested in being out of diapers and when potty training is only going to take a couple days. There is no right or wrong time to train your child - just remember to do what is best for you and your family, and once you start, it's best to just keep on going!

There are pros and cons to both, but I took the major cons of early training (ie: it takes longer, you still have to help the child with pulling down pants and underwear) and weighed it against paying for another 18 months worth of diapers, and in my case, having 2 in diapers, and early training won out. I will say though, I have no expectation for Evan to be night time trained by the time we're done or even soon afterward.

There are some basic signs that you should look for in your child before you start early training.
Child should be able to communicate somehow the need to urinate
Child should be able to stand and walk well
Child should be at a point where his/her bowl movements are consistently at the same time each day
Child should be able to follow simple 2 step commands (ie: "Go get the brush and bring it to mommy.")

I think that's about it on that. I may come back and edit and add, but for now, I think that's a good start.