Potty Training

Yes, I bribed him to sit on the potty when I knew he had to poop at my mom's house with the DVD player. Terrible? Yes, I admit it was pretty terrible, but sometimes you just gotta do whatcha gotta do to get the job done.

I decided to give potty training Ollie a try after speed reading Diaper-Free Before 3 - which essentially advocates early potty training, starting as early as 6 months to get your kiddo out of diapers as soon as two or so. The author is a pediatrician and mother and did a lot of research about where our modern concept of potty training readiness come from and de-bunking some of those myths. It was pretty interesting. I don't know if I buy it whole-heartedly and I think that every kid is different, but I decided to give it a go even though we were way behind the six month starting point.

Ollie seemed to be showing signs of traditional "potty readiness" - telling us when he pees/poops, hiding when he is pooping in his diaper, resisting having his diaper changed (I am so sick of that battle), volunteering to use the potty a few times - even for poo. He also really into being a "big boy," especially since we have been talking a lot about baby brother these days.

So I unilaterally decided (sorry Mylo - I probably should have consulted him on that one) to go balls the wall (semi-literally) and ditch the diapers. We busted out the big boy underwear and Ollie has been mostly diaper free, with the exception of a pull-up at nap and night-time. The books says to go diaper free at nap and night-time too, but that just isn't practical if you actually want your kid to sleep and Ollie definetely still wets his diaper at night, although he is often stays dry for naps.

So we have had some good success - Ollie has been having about 1-2 accidents a day after a few days of potty training, a few of which involved going to my mom's house which was admittedly a little disruptive. Most of the accidents occur right after he sat on the potty, which is frustrating yes, but I think we just need to get him to sit on the potty for a bit longer. He is more excited about going potty on the "big potty" and has started telling us when he has to go sometimes. He still gets distracted when he playing and has accidents, but we are just trying to be proactive and get him to use the potty regularly to avoid last minute accidents.

We are not making a big deal of accidents, and telling him it is ok when he does have an accident. We are asking him to use the potty regularly and most of the time (80%) he sits on the potty he will go pee, but he is still resisting going poo on the toilet a lot of the time. He has even been great while we are out and about running errands and has used the potty in public restrooms.

So basically, it is a lot of work and we are trying to avoid bribes (besides the DVD player incident), but he is so proud of himself for being a big boy and I don't have to fight with him to change his diaper since he can put his underpants on himself. Hoorah! Plus I don't have to wash cloth diapers - at least for 3 1/2 more months. I don't think it will be an instant process with Ollie and it will probably take a few weeks to really get it, but we seem to be making progress, so we just keep trucking along.