potty train my son

I have heard people say that when they are ready, they’re just ready.

We waited until his 3rd b-day. Sure, we experimented with the potty and tried a couple weekends with no success. Since he didn’t seem to show any interest I decided to wait.

For about a month before his birthday we talked about it. He’ll be a big boy, no more diapers, etc. So, that very weekend, out went the diapers and on went the underwear. We took him to the potty every half hour, then every hour, then every two. Within 2 days he was completely potty trained. He had some typical constipation problems. Learning to listen to his body for bm’s was a little harder. But, we are over that hurdle and have been diaper free for 2 months!!!!

Things have not progressed with this as well as I’d hoped. Although using the potty daily, he’s become somewhat bored with the process (damn those comfortably absorbant diapers) and we’re still not down with the brown, so I’ve decided to re-instate the sticker system, though with a book rather than a chart.

Today I let him pick out a book he liked and 2 new sets of stickers to add to what we have already. He chose sparkly trucks and robots. I explained the plan to him and within 10 minutes of getting back to the house, he’d earned his first sticker for the book.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to check this one off.

he pee’d in his potty today :D

2 weeks ago he spontaneously asked to go potty…so I took him, and he went!
We ditched the pullups (only for trips outside of home) for cloth training pants, and he has been successful about 80% of the time…pretty darn good considering he was not interested at all before that.
Still working on #2, though…but hey, look how far he’s come!

He pooed in the potty again last night. I hope he will keep it up because right now he pees in the potty just about every time he needs to go but he will only poo in the potty once every 6 or 7 times.

I decided to put my sons potty in his bedroom. I had it in the bathroom but anytime I would take him in there to go potty he would become instantly fascinated with taking a bath. No matter how many times I explained what we were in there for he could not get over taking a bath and would freak out when I told him no bath. He’s convinced that because I took him in the bathroom it means its bathtime.
So I moved it to his bedroom and so far he has just been using it as a chair to read books. But thats progress!! That means he’ll actually sit still on it. I think today after lunch I will try sitting him on it bare-bottomed while I read to him and maybe he’ll feel comfortable enough to go.

The other night I was getting my son ready to get in the tub and he kept saying poop. I figured he had pooped but when I took off his diaper, no poop. So I thought maybe he was confused, he usually poops in the afternoon anyways. Well about 5 minutes into the bath he pooped. Boy did I feel dumb for totally missing that one.

At two years old he is showing signs that he is almost ready for potty training but not quite. I don’t want to push him and I don’t believe in bribes (treats for going potty). I give him praise and positive attention, as well as read him books about going potty. Hopefully soon he will be ready to start and by the time he turns three he will be going regularly.

he is almost 3 1/2 so this is all very exciting- but not to worry those of you that have stubborn/smart kids it does happen- mostly on their time schedule

we’re mostly done- we still have the occasional accident, we are just working on getting him to go on his own without him asking “mom, can you come to the bafroom with me”. We’re 97% there. We promised him a potty party (friends, park, cake/ice cream, presents once he’s done. He still wears pullups at night- but sometimes wakes up dry. i know night time dryness is another issue entirely- i’m so not concerned with that right now. We’re doing good.