Are You inClined?: Potty Training

Skip over this one if you do not want to know the details of exactly how we potty trained Logan and how it went. I just want to keep a record so I remember.

Let me start by saying I did NOT want to potty train Logan. He seemed completely uninterested in potty training. He didn't want to sit on the potty, didn't want me to change his diaper, didn't care if he was dirty or wet or anything. He didn't fulfill any of the readiness-for-potty-training-checklists I found all over Pinterest. So really I wasn't going to do it, until I figured out that you have to potty train your 3 year old if you want him to go to preschool in the fall. This was my ONLY motivating factor. I was/am terrified of potty training. I knew I couldn't do it during our move, and that I wouldn't have the energy to do it after the baby came, so I decided to try it a couple weeks after we moved and had gotten settled.

Once I picked the day we were going to start (yesterday, Monday May 23), I told Logan, "We're going to start potty training on Monday!" I told him this daily for about a week so it wouldn't be a shock when we started.

On Sunday night I reread the potty training eBook I had bought and set up the bathroom. We had a potty seat, two different tupperwares of treats (M&Ms for peeing and individually wrapped packets of Oreos for poop), and several books.

I had also seen this idea on Pinterest. The world's simplest potty charts. I thought Logan would like putting Paw Patrol stickers on them.

Honestly, Sunday night I slept horribly because I kept waking up and thinking about how I had to potty train Logan the next day. I felt like I was going into war. I was already super tired when I woke up!

First thing I went into Logan's room (after he'd woken up) and said, "It's potty training day!" and pulled off his pants and his diaper. Then we went in the bathroom and he started crying and saying no. I got him on the potty and he was still crying, so I started to read him a book and he relaxed and peed right in the potty! Woohoo! A success right away!

The eBook I read has you leave your kid totally naked for almost three days, but Logan was really upset that he didn't have a shirt or pants or a diaper. He kept asking for them so I finally put a shirt on him, but left him naked from the waist down so both he and I could tell if he was having an accident.

I had to stay next to him and take him potty every 20 minutes the entire day. It was totally exhausting. I couldn't turn on the TV because he would get way too wrapped up in a show and not let me take him potty or he'd just not pay attention and have an accident. So we did lots of puzzles, playing with cars on the table, playing with Melissa and Doug cookies, and other not-crazy-distracting activities. It was a looooong day since we couldn't break it up with TV or any trips around town.

Fortunately we had more successes than accidents.

By the end of the first day he'd peed in the potty 7 times and had 3 and a half accidents. The half accident was when he started to pee, realized it, and then ran to the bathroom to finish. Surprisingly, this happened in the morning, after we'd only been potty training for a couple of hours, and his full-on accidents happened later.

I was very happy when it was bedtime. We are not doing nighttime potty training right now, so he's still in diapers at night.

I was super nervous thinking that he would probably poop the next day though.

So Tuesday Logan woke up and protested again when I took off his pants and diaper. But he immediately had another success. Yay!

Tuesday I was supposed to take him potty every 30-40 minutes. I was nervous so I started with 30 minutes. At around 8:30 Logan was sitting on a chair and suddenly looked down. I said, "Do you need to go potty?" And he said "Yes!" and ran to the bathroom. When he was in there he pooped AND peed. He was so proud and very happy to have his cookies!

That morning he had a couple more successes, one small accident, and one big accident. The most frustrating thing was that the big accident was in the bathroom! He had started dancing a bit so I said let's try to go potty, and he was standing on the step and got distracted by the toilet paper being a bit unrolled, tried to fix it, and went all over the floor! I was thinking, you were right there! You were inches away from the potty! But it happens.

Before nap he had another success and he also went poop in the potty again! I was so proud of him. I told him he was amazing and he goes, "I know!"

Here's Logan and his stickers by the end of day #2

Day #3 was rough. It had been going well so far and I think I got overly confident. Also, Logan woke up before six so both he and I were incredibly tired. We switched to going every hour, and but Logan was never willing to go. I had to drag him to the potty pretty much every time and he would yell, "No, no!" at me. However, he was still going pretty regularly. He only had once accident. Halfway though the day we put him in underwear.

When Jordan got home I was totally done and so tired of being in the house for almost three entire days that I took off and went and did some shopping just so I could not be home for a bit. I went to dollar tree and got Logan a little squirt gun.

Thursday and Friday were kind of more of the same. The novelty of going on the potty had worn off, and so getting him to go was a struggle. He had his first poop accident on Thursday. Fortunately he only went a little bit and then came and found me and finished on the potty. Some successes, though--I took him to the splash pad park on Thursday and he went on the potty at the park and also at Bonnie's house that afternoon, and then again at Walgreens on Friday. That was a relief because I hear a lot of kids who are scared to go on pottys that aren't theirs.

Logan has been fighting me so much the last few days though that I decided I wanted to switch tactics. I feel like he needs to be the one to go potty or notice when he needs to go, maybe if he has more control over it he won't be so mad. So I told him I wasn't going to tell him when to go anymore, but he needs to stay dry and go on the potty to get a sticker on his new sticker chart. When his new chart is full, he'll get the Spy Chase toy that he has really wanted. We'll see how that goes. So far today he's gotten two stickers but he also started to have an accident and although he finished on the potty, he didn't get a sticker and he was upset about that. I'm hoping this will help motivate him.

UPDATED TO ADD: Okay, so he still wouldn't really "say" most the time if he needed to go potty. I think he gets embarrassed or something like that. But he would look at me like, "hey, I need to go," and then we would go to the bathroom, and he would go. We need to work on the verbal communication, but I'm sure it will come. I think he was getting really frustrated because I was asking him constantly if he needed to go potty. Once I stopped asking him all the time (now I just ask every couple of hours), he was a lot easier to take to the bathroom.

On Sunday and Monday he didn't have ANY accidents! He finally got enough stickers that this morning (Tuesday) he filled up his chart and got his Spy Chase toy! He was so excited.