Potty Training Day One

It's been quiet around here. I'm taking the week off to focus on potty training. We babysat for friends Monday and Tuesday. And today we started potty training... all that to say, I'll be back with Kids in the Word (and other posts) next week.

For those of you who are interested in the potty training details...

We're throwing Jonathan a three day potty party. This morning he woke up and the family room and bathroom area were decorated with streamers and balloons (left over from 1st birthday celebrations). We bought a boy doll that goes potty and started to "potty train" the doll. Our doll went on the potty a few times and got treats (which he shared with Jonathan) and star stickers on his potty chart.

I intended to keep Jonathan in diapers until after nap, but then he wanted to be in big boy underwear just like the doll. So we moved into his Cars and Thomas the Train underpants.

Now, our biggest hurdle with potty training is having him initiate going potty. He's been very comfortable sitting and using the potty-- but always at our initiative. He typically uses it three or four times a day (after every meal). We've had the occasional dirty diapers and lots and lots of wet ones. And every once in a while he'll initiate going potty. But not usually. So, my hope is by moving him into big boy underwear, he'll begin to initiate more.

At first, we had one poop in underwear which he told me about right away. Then, we had several pairs of wet underwear-- one of which he told me about, the rest he didn't seem to care. I was pretty discouraged! We checked every 15 minutes to see if he was dry. If he was dry, he got a treat. If he was wet, we changed his underwear and put him on the potty. If he got anything in the potty, we put some stars on his chart,

I knew to expect accidents, but I didn't expect him not to care. We cleaned up the accidents and talked about how our pee/poo is supposed to go in the potty-- not the floor. We also talked about telling our body to wait until we ran to the potty.

So, he finally initiated and told me "Mama! I have to go pee!" So we ran to the potty, he went pee and mommy did a happy dance. He put a sticker on his chart (which happened to complete a row) and got a toy-- a Tow Mader truck. Suddenly, he was a lot more motivated. He initiated one more time after that and now it's time for nap (in a pull up).

I don't know whether or not the trend will continue, but at least it's progress! Stay tuned for more updates... but I'd love if you have words of wisdom to share...