The Potty Training Diaries: Day 1

1:30pm

Today we started potty training.  Really it's been a long time coming.  Brooks has shown signs of readiness for a while now: wanting to wear big boy underwear, asking to go potty & actually going, being uncomfortable in a dirty diaper.  He was ready, I was not.  I just couldn't motivate myself to commit to it.  That and I figure it would be better to wait until he was older (he's 2 1/2) and really ready rather than beat my head against a wall trying to get him to do something he doesnt' want to do.  But the kid can't wear diapers forever, right?  So we decided that since I have two weeks off from teaching class, now would be a good time to do it.  And this little tutorial helped give me a plan so I didn't feel so lost & frustrated in the process.  Here goes ....

All weekend we'd been "hyping up" the big boy underwear.  So come this morning, he was more than excited to put on his new Woody Buzz underwear.  We headed straight to the bathroom and he peed!  A good start.  We ate breakfast, then played and I figured in an hour or so I'd have him sit down & pee again.  Well about 45 minutes later I was cleaning up a pee puddle on the kitchen floor.  That's ok.  This is just day 1.

I told Brooks his pee needs to go in the potty & don't pee on Woody.  That seemed logical to him and I was hoping it would work.  He was so proud of his Woody underwear.  Was I wasn't expecting was this.  He figured out rather quickly that when he had an accident, he put on a clean pair of underwear.  A new pair of underwear.  So he started having little accidents on purpose, just to try so he could wear a different pair of underwear. 

Well that wasn't going to fly.  So I didn't put on him any underwear at all.  I have to say a skinny kid running around totally naked from the waist down is pretty darn cute :)  And within an hour he actually told me he had to pee.  And he did!  Success!!  Then a few more times that hour he said he needed to go potty and actually did.

Now he's sleeping.  In underwear.  I know I'm going to have an epic pee mess to clean when he wakes up, but since he usually poops during nap time, I knew putting a diaper on him would only encourage that.  I'm hoping that by the end of the week he'll be dry at the end of nap time.  I may be crazy.  We'll see.

3:30pm
Well, B woke up in a puddle, like I expected.  What I didn't expect was that he would cry.  I don't know if he felt embarassed or disappointed or felt like he failed.  But I gave him a big hug and told him that sometimes accidents happen.  It's ok.  He calmed down and helped me take the sheets off his bed.  He sat on the potty, but didn't go.  We'll see how the afternoon goes.

8:00pm
The rest of the day went really well.  Brooks had one little accident while eating snack, but he caught it early and finished peeing in the potty.  I'd consider that a success!  The rest of the night, no accidents!!  We even went outside and played for an hour.

The goal is to potty train this kid in a week.  Looks like we're off to a good start.