Potty Training Report

This picture really doesn't have much to do with this post.

Except for the fact that Connor looks so grown up here.

In the middle of April, I started a potty-training project with Connor.

Wait, let's start before that.

We used to buy so many varieties of diapers at the store. The way we used to buy milk. We would buy size 3 Pampers Baby Dry for Lex, size 5 Pampers Baby Dry for Connor for daytime wear, size 5 Pampers Easy Ups for Connor for when I could convince him to wear them, and finally, size 5 Pampers Overnights for Connor.

I decided around the beginning of April that this was madness. So I declared that Connor was a big boy who would only wear diapers at night, and that he would wear the Easy Ups during the day. Cross the size 5 Pampers Baby Dry off the shopping list.

Then, after convincing him that the Easy Ups were a good fit (even though he didn't like them because he would feel wet sooner than in the Baby Dry diaper), we started our potty training project.

For two weeks, I gave him a sticker on his Elmo Potty Chart every time he would pull down the Easy Up and sit on the potty. This was important, because he needed a ton of practice with the whole pants up and down thing.

Yes, my child is almost three, and he still cannot dress himself. When he was a bit younger, this didn't distress me at all. In fact, I could see a bright side: he was never taking his clothes off and on. Which meant that after I dressed him, he stayed that way until I undressed him. Easy peasy. He's just never been interested in doing it himself.

But now, he can do pants by himself. And that is important to to the potty project.

During the two weeks we did the sticker chart, I had a vision of how potty training would work. Once Connor could demonstrate that he understood the concept and could keep the Easy Up dry, we would switch to underpants.

Then, one day, it hit me. I kept telling him about wearing underpants, and telling him he would get them once he could stay dry, but he had no idea what I was talking about. All he knew was diapers. So, one day, I just put him in underpants. We had an underpants party.

The first day, he had a 100% failure rate, but at least he knew what I was talking about. Finally.

The second day was only a 50% failure rate, and within a week, we had our first diaper-free and accident-free day. Progress has been quick since then. The next week, we had three consecutive accident-free days. He always did best when just left alone. He would simply "get the feeling" and then run to the potty, unprompted.

We took a break from the whole project on Mother's Day weekend, as we did some long distance traveling, and Connor wasn't in the mood. When we got home, he was ready for his underpants again.

I was fully prepared to bribe him to get him to the point that we are at now, which is pretty much potty trained during the day. I was prepared to give him M&Ms for small victories, and bigger things, like Matchbox cars, for bigger victories. But it turns out that was not necessary.

We do little things around the house instead. Those dinosaur lights we hung up on the first underpants day? They are still in the kitchen, and Connor gets to have them turned on whenever he is wearing underpants. Penguin can wear underpants, too, but only if Connor is. These two little things are all it took to keep Connor excited about wearing underpants.

BTW, for the first part of our potty training, I was putting him back into an Easy Up at nap time. Then, Kevin encouraged me to let him try to nap in underpants. Kevin told Connor that he knew he could stay dry at nap, and that's all it took. Connor has never wet the bed a nap time. And often times he says to me, "Daddy said that I could stay dry at nap." It really made an impression on him.