One subject that has many opinions would have to be…How to Potty Train? I do not claim to be an expert but we had zero complications with the route we chose so I want to share that with you!! Always remember every child is different and will be ready to train at different times!! You are the one who knows your child best! 🙂 Make sure you don’t forget to love on them no matter what!!Right before Grayden turned two we started “Pre-Training”. This was where we started linking the diaper to the potty. We did this by explaining to him where pee and poo go AND by actually dumping a poopy diaper in the potty and having him flush and say “Bye-Bye!!”. Funny yes…but I am claiming part of our success to that step!! Then we bought the potty seat that goes directly on the potty (again not one for doing extra steps that are useless…we never bought a small potty…I wasn’t going to train him on the small potty only to have to train AGAIN on the big potty!) so that he would be used to the big potty. So we just started sitting him on it here and there…still dumping diapers in the potty with the seat.
The turning point came sooner than we thought (again…each child is different and you will know when they are ready)…the day he actually verbalized that he had to go pee was when I knew he was ready. This was a few months after he turned two. So I took the next weekend (three day weekend SCORE!) and trained him with the “cold turkey” method. We took away ALL diapers and put him in big boy undies all day each day and I stayed home all day and sat him on the potty every 30 minutes. He had 2 accidents and after that he was golden. I even took him to the grocery store on day three…with big boy undies…and ZERO accidents!!
Be ready for a lot of false alarms and take them SERIOUS!! I think that also contributed to our success since he was so young and I knew he wouldn’t be able to hold it for very long…if he said pee I found a bathroom…even on the side of the road! ha ha! Pee was easy…poo took a few more days. He never had an accident he just held it…after 5 days I gave that boy prune juice and kept him on the potty often…and you get the idea! Keep some children’s potty training books in the bathroom and read them often…Grayden loves reading so that helped on those stubborn nights and sitting on the potty for more than 5 mins.
We only used pull-ups for naps and bedtime and then I removed them all together a few months later. He was waking up with a dry one so I wasn’t going to waste money on them. We had a few night accidents and then we changed evening routine by removing any liquids close to bedtime and making a potty stop RIGHT before bed…so far so good!! He was fully trained day and night by June 2014 and we even took a trip out of town with ONLY undies and survived with ZERO accidents!!
He was 100% ready when we started…that is key to success!! Also consistency, patience, and routine!! Don’t go backwards with accidents just keep pushing forward!! Unless you can tell your little one just isn’t ready yet…and that is OK! Trust me…they don’t graduate high school in pull-ups…one day they will be ready!! Just make sure to keep your frustrations out of the picture and give lots of love, hugs and encouragement!!
My of course cliché on the potty picture ha ha!! He was one cool dude and so very proud of himself when it clicked!! 🙂 Grayden doesn’t have many thoughts of his own on the subject ha ha! My thoughts…I am very proud of him!! 🙂
xoxoLaurette
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