Potty Training

With some encouragement from Sean's daycare teachers, we took the plunge to potty train Sean over Christmas break.  So, on Saturday the 22nd of December, we ditched the diapers after he woke up and started with a pair of fire truck underwear.  His elf, Cookie Monster, surprised him by sitting on his potty chair in the bathroom that morning.  With a short conversation, a few phrases we taught him to use, and some library books next to his potty, Sean was proud and ready to show us he could do this.

Thirty minutes after we initiated the process, the first accident.  He had pooped his pants.  And to give it the full effect, it ran down his leg and on to our hard wood floor.  He said, "Uh oh" and boy was he right.  A few clorox wipes and baby wipes later, he had a new pair of underwear on and my confidence was restored that he could do this.

An hour later, the next accident.  He had pooped his pants, again.  It's not like him at all to go this often or this close together, so I happened to notice that something wasn't right.   

This happened two more times over the course of the day before we realized he had some stomach bug.  It wasn't easy to figure out since he had no fever, no vomiting, was still eating and drinking like normal, and was happy as could be.  But, after washing out four disgusting pairs of little underwears, I decided he would do better with pull-ups.

At the end of the first day, realizing he was sick, we had a decision to make.  Abandon potty training until he felt better or deal with the diarrhea and keep going.  I thought it didn't make much sense to tell him to use the potty and that diapers were for babies, but then stick a diaper on him the next day.  He's smart enough to know what we're saying.  So, we opted to keep him in pull-ups and to hope for the best.

For the next week, Sean was very successful with going pee in the potty, but was still having diarrhea.  We finally called his pediatrician who asked us to keep him on a carb diet only for 48 hours and to make him drink watered down Gatorade after each bowel movement.  Sure enough, within 48 hours, he seemed to be back to normal with his bathroom issues.  But, he still wouldn't go poop in his potty chair.

So, we had another decision to make.  Abandon potty training until he was more "ready" or keep going.  And again, I had a hard time just stopping completely.  I had to let go of my hangs up about Sean being potty trained in 3 days or some unrealistic time frame like some of these "strategies" and books teach you.  I had to just go with the flow and realize that Sean would just take longer.

It's been three weeks and he now tells us when he needs to go pee in the potty.  He hasn't had but very few pee accidents (mostly after naps).  He still wears a diaper at bedtime because we aren't ready to tackle overnight potty training yet, but he has woken up dry on more than one occasion in these three weeks.

He's successfully pooped on the potty twice!  While it isn't consistent and he still has lots of poop accidents, we made sure to celebrate his victories!  He now gets one M&M each time he goes pee in the potty and he knows that if he poops in the potty he gets chocolate milk.  Can you tell this boy has taken after me with a chocolate obsession?

I know this will be an ongoing process for the next few months and I'm confident that we made the right decision to keep going with potty training him.  He loves the excitement of being a big boy and wearing Pull-ups.  He loves showing Grandma or Nana that he can go in the potty.  And I'm pretty sure he's loving the rewards we give him for going!  So, for now, that's good enough for us.