Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Potty Learning Adventures

*= sarcasm*Oh man, this is FUN!*/sarcasm*

Parker has been using the potty since about 15 months, but only recently when the hot weather hit did we decide maybe we should try it full force and actually try to get him to stop wearing diapers during the day. For two days I let him run around the place bottomless.


The first two days went way better than I expected, except he did poop on the carpet. *laugh* It was easier to clean up than later when he pooped in the underwear. One of the two days I had moved his potty chair into the living room for quick access and by the end of the day it was quite full. One minute I was thinking I should move the chair back into the restroom and clean it up and sure enough the next minute Parker completely tripped over the thing and knocked concentrated pee all over the carpet. Eeek!

He gets a sticker every time he uses the potty, and at some point in time he started collecting them on his dresser. As you can see, he's got quite the collection (it's grown quite a bit since this picture even).


He likes to put the stickers next to other similar stickers. Here are a few samples of his different "groups."


The third day of our potty learning adventure we had the trip to Disneyland and I just planned on him being in diapers and giving it a break so that we could just concentrate on having fun. We were surprised to find out that he had stayed dry up until after lunch! I felt a little bad because I thought maybe he had held it in. It took some time and effort, but Grandma and I convinced him to use the potty at Disneyland and then just put the diaper back on him. We loaded him up with fluids just in case and he didn't hold it again after that. We were kind of busy the rest of the week so, again, we didn't do the training full-force like the first two days. We tried putting regular underwear on him but he tended to forget when he was wearing them and would just go. I had forgotten that Jake's mom had given us some pull-ups for Christmas and I was afraid to let him outside in just the underwear because of it.


I knew that we'd have to take the potty training outside of the house to ever reach full success, so I eventually remembered the pull-ups and dug them up. We started it up full force again and he's doing awesome! He stayed dry at church on Sunday with the pull-up, but he doesn't often tell us when he has to go. He got really upset when he saw other kids leaving to go potty and the volunteers had to buzz me to come help figure out what was wrong with Drama Llama. I took him to the restroom and he stood up on a stool and went. Fortunately he likes to go "like Dada" because it makes bubbles.

Monday we went to my doctor's appointment and later in the afternoon to Toys R Us and he had the same pull-up on all day! He did well in every public restroom. Unfortunately, public restrooms don't usually have stools so while at Toys R Us I invested in a portable toilet seat cover that folds up and stays in the diaper bag. A couple of incidents of wet knees from being on the ground to help Parker stay on the seat were enough to get me to spend the $9.00. We haven't used it yet so I'm not sure how well it's going to work.

Yesterday, he wore underwear all day (except we put a pull-up on when we went outside for a walk and diapers during nap/quiet times) and we didn't have any accidents! He's getting a little better about telling me if he has to go, but usually it's just me reminding him to go.


Our biggest hurdle so far has been getting him to poop on the toilet. He used to do it quite often in the beginning when it was new and fun, but now he only goes during his quiet time in his crib (AKA his Poop 'N Play). I'm not sure how to change that routine for him. He does it almost every day and has done that since he was really little. He prefers to wait until he's alone and can relax and "let loose." So one day when it was almost quiet time, I set him up on the big toilet and gave him lots of entertainment.

He sat there for 45 minutes with no results. But sure enough it all came out during his quiet time. Any advice/suggestions on the poop thing would be much appreciated!

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"Then he said to his disciples, 'When you welcome even a child because of me, you welcome me. And when you welcome me, you welcome the one who sent me. Whichever one of you is the most humble is the greatest.'" Luke 9:48

2 comments:

MOMMY-MOMO said...

i'm laughing over here and have absolutely NO advice. haha sorry. Parker is doing much better than Easy... so you know what you're doing way more than me. :)

Sarah Soos said...

maybe turn out the lights in the bathroom and hand him a blanket? lol I don't know. Good job with the stickers though, on the nanny 911 shows, the nanny always has some type of reward system, often stickers.


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