The end is near. I can see it in the very near future: NO MORE DIAPERS!!! I really never thought I'd see this day but it is almost here and I can hardly contain myself. I've already put away the changing pad and put shorts in the drawer where the diapers used to be.
I hope I'm not getting ahead of myself. Nicholas has only been going poop in the potty for a few weeks now and only this week did he start going pee in the potty. However, he's going about the whole potty training thing a whole lot better than 5-year old Michael did.
With Michael, potty training was a huge fiasco. We started with pull-ups, the Lightning Mcqueen pull-ups that have the flags and piston cups on them that disappear when wet. Michael had just turned 3 and we'd just seen the Cars movie so the pull-ups were a big hit. He got that he had to pull them down to go pee in the potty and it was a big deal to keep them dry. We also gave him potty treats for every time he went pee in the potty (yogurt covered raisins were what worked best for us). Pretty soon he was pretty good about staying dry and going in the potty.
You'd think that these sweet treats would have motivated him to go poop in the potty too but they didn't. He would not go poop in the potty. He said he was scared. I bought him a Cars sweatsuit and told him that he couldn't wear it until he went poop in the potty. He didn't care. I bought him one of those Dora CD players that had the plastic CDs and a book to go with it and propped it up where he could see it for inspiration. Still no poop. I bought him special Wiggles underwear. Nothing. He pooped in the pull-ups though, and that was messy, especially when he decided to take off the poopy pull-up and set it and his poopy butt on the white living room carpet (can we as parents morally deduct carpet cleaning expenses from the college fund?).
I'd about had it with potty training when one day right before we went on a week-long vacation he went poop in the potty! I saw fireworks, I heard music, I was so happy that at 3 years and 2 months my eldest son was finally potty trained! And he was. After that initial poop, he had no problems going. Just in time for preschool too.
My youngest son, Nicholas, is only 2 3/4 but he's been showing signs of interest in the potty for several months. I didn't really expect him to potty train before the age that his brother did, but I thought we should try anyway.
At the beginning of the summer we had the potty talk - I told him that if he wanted to go to preschool in the fall with his favorite teacher (he did) he had to go pee and poop in the potty and not in his diapers. "They don't allow diapers in preschool," I told him. He nodded and said "OK" but I didn't think he really got it. I brought up the potty anyway. He was excited when he peed in it but it wasn't enough of a thrill for him to want to continue. It was a start and stop deal until a few weeks ago.
One night at the dinner table (again, this is right before we went on our annual week-long vacation) he announced to me that he had a poopy butt and he wanted to go in the potty. I thought he meant that he had a poopy diaper but when I checked he was dry. He said, "No Mom, I want to go poop in the potty!" You will not see a mom move faster than when her little ones utter these words when they are still in diapers (ok, maybe when they say that they have to throw up!). I whisked him away to the nearest bathroom, took off his diaper, and put him on the potty seat. I'd had a lot of practice because we had done this before many times.
Imagine my surprise when with little effort some poop finally came out. He didn't cry, he didn't complain, it just happened. Those of you who know Nicholas know that he has been quite challenging in the past so this came as quite a surprise to me. I thought to myself, "Finally this kid does something with ease!" Of course, just that week I had panicked about him not being anywhere near potty trained and yanked him out of his precious fall preschool slot.
He's been pretty good about going poop in the potty ever since. He's only gone once in his diaper and that's because he had just woken up from his nap and wasn't too keen on being disrobed while still tired. The peeing, though, that's another story.
I tried using pull-ups on Nicholas too. I told him the same thing about keeping the flags and piston cups dry but he didn't get it and kept peeing in them. He kept wanting to wear underwear but he would always pee in them. My mom kept on me about getting him totally potty trained - "Just take him every 15 minutes or so and get him used to going," she told me. I wasn't so sure though. He's the type of kid who will do things when he's ready and I didn't want to push him. After all, he was still younger than Michael was when we started potty training him.
It took a call from my neighbor to get me to see the light. Her son, Jack, was 3 in May and she hadn't started potty training him at all. Once again, though, the call of preschool set off the potty training panic in her and she told me that she was just going to put him in underwear. No more diapers, she said. If he has an accident I'll just clean it up. No big deal.
No big deal indeed! I thought, If Jack can go straight from diapers to underwear, so can Nicholas. So I called him to me and told him that he wasn't going to be wearing diapers anymore except at nighttime and that he could now wear his underwear. He was so excited. He and Grandma had just gone shopping and bought new Spiderman underwear, so he immediately went and put a pair on. He was so proud of those underwear.
"Nicholas," I said trying to make my voice seem like it was coming from his underwear. "This is Spiderman. Please do something for me and keep me dry. I don't like being wet!"
"OK," he said. And he did it!! To my surprise, he has only had a couple accidents in the short 4 days since I instituted the plan. Even through naps he stays dry.
So I'm crossing my fingers that this is not a fluke and he is, indeed, potty trained. I know I've still got to eventually deal with the nighttime diaper, and we have to teach him to pee standing up and have a class in wiping etiquette, but I can see it - the end is near! Hurrah!!
(I've got to run. I've got to see if his preschool slot is still available!)
I hope I'm not getting ahead of myself. Nicholas has only been going poop in the potty for a few weeks now and only this week did he start going pee in the potty. However, he's going about the whole potty training thing a whole lot better than 5-year old Michael did.
With Michael, potty training was a huge fiasco. We started with pull-ups, the Lightning Mcqueen pull-ups that have the flags and piston cups on them that disappear when wet. Michael had just turned 3 and we'd just seen the Cars movie so the pull-ups were a big hit. He got that he had to pull them down to go pee in the potty and it was a big deal to keep them dry. We also gave him potty treats for every time he went pee in the potty (yogurt covered raisins were what worked best for us). Pretty soon he was pretty good about staying dry and going in the potty.
You'd think that these sweet treats would have motivated him to go poop in the potty too but they didn't. He would not go poop in the potty. He said he was scared. I bought him a Cars sweatsuit and told him that he couldn't wear it until he went poop in the potty. He didn't care. I bought him one of those Dora CD players that had the plastic CDs and a book to go with it and propped it up where he could see it for inspiration. Still no poop. I bought him special Wiggles underwear. Nothing. He pooped in the pull-ups though, and that was messy, especially when he decided to take off the poopy pull-up and set it and his poopy butt on the white living room carpet (can we as parents morally deduct carpet cleaning expenses from the college fund?).
I'd about had it with potty training when one day right before we went on a week-long vacation he went poop in the potty! I saw fireworks, I heard music, I was so happy that at 3 years and 2 months my eldest son was finally potty trained! And he was. After that initial poop, he had no problems going. Just in time for preschool too.
My youngest son, Nicholas, is only 2 3/4 but he's been showing signs of interest in the potty for several months. I didn't really expect him to potty train before the age that his brother did, but I thought we should try anyway.
At the beginning of the summer we had the potty talk - I told him that if he wanted to go to preschool in the fall with his favorite teacher (he did) he had to go pee and poop in the potty and not in his diapers. "They don't allow diapers in preschool," I told him. He nodded and said "OK" but I didn't think he really got it. I brought up the potty anyway. He was excited when he peed in it but it wasn't enough of a thrill for him to want to continue. It was a start and stop deal until a few weeks ago.
One night at the dinner table (again, this is right before we went on our annual week-long vacation) he announced to me that he had a poopy butt and he wanted to go in the potty. I thought he meant that he had a poopy diaper but when I checked he was dry. He said, "No Mom, I want to go poop in the potty!" You will not see a mom move faster than when her little ones utter these words when they are still in diapers (ok, maybe when they say that they have to throw up!). I whisked him away to the nearest bathroom, took off his diaper, and put him on the potty seat. I'd had a lot of practice because we had done this before many times.
Imagine my surprise when with little effort some poop finally came out. He didn't cry, he didn't complain, it just happened. Those of you who know Nicholas know that he has been quite challenging in the past so this came as quite a surprise to me. I thought to myself, "Finally this kid does something with ease!" Of course, just that week I had panicked about him not being anywhere near potty trained and yanked him out of his precious fall preschool slot.
He's been pretty good about going poop in the potty ever since. He's only gone once in his diaper and that's because he had just woken up from his nap and wasn't too keen on being disrobed while still tired. The peeing, though, that's another story.
I tried using pull-ups on Nicholas too. I told him the same thing about keeping the flags and piston cups dry but he didn't get it and kept peeing in them. He kept wanting to wear underwear but he would always pee in them. My mom kept on me about getting him totally potty trained - "Just take him every 15 minutes or so and get him used to going," she told me. I wasn't so sure though. He's the type of kid who will do things when he's ready and I didn't want to push him. After all, he was still younger than Michael was when we started potty training him.
It took a call from my neighbor to get me to see the light. Her son, Jack, was 3 in May and she hadn't started potty training him at all. Once again, though, the call of preschool set off the potty training panic in her and she told me that she was just going to put him in underwear. No more diapers, she said. If he has an accident I'll just clean it up. No big deal.
No big deal indeed! I thought, If Jack can go straight from diapers to underwear, so can Nicholas. So I called him to me and told him that he wasn't going to be wearing diapers anymore except at nighttime and that he could now wear his underwear. He was so excited. He and Grandma had just gone shopping and bought new Spiderman underwear, so he immediately went and put a pair on. He was so proud of those underwear.
"Nicholas," I said trying to make my voice seem like it was coming from his underwear. "This is Spiderman. Please do something for me and keep me dry. I don't like being wet!"
"OK," he said. And he did it!! To my surprise, he has only had a couple accidents in the short 4 days since I instituted the plan. Even through naps he stays dry.
So I'm crossing my fingers that this is not a fluke and he is, indeed, potty trained. I know I've still got to eventually deal with the nighttime diaper, and we have to teach him to pee standing up and have a class in wiping etiquette, but I can see it - the end is near! Hurrah!!
(I've got to run. I've got to see if his preschool slot is still available!)
1 comment:
Hooray for you guys!
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