Potty Training...Completed!

I've been meaning to write this blog for a while. With hopes of not jinxing anything, Jacob is pretty much fully potty trained!!! I wanted to go ahead and write down what worked for us in case it helps anyone else, but, more importantly so I'll remember what worked for Jacob when it comes time for Noah to learn!

I wanted Jacob to learn earlier this year, shortly after he turned 2 but, our pediatrician recommended we wait to start a few months after Noah was brought him. We didn't want to make a lot of progress and then have him regress once a new baby was brought in the house. Then, we wanted to wait until after our trip to the beach to get everything underway. So, the beginning of August is pretty much when we really started to do things seriously.

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect since I had heard some people had potty trained their child in a few days, some took almost a year. I'll also say that for the last 4 or 5 months Jacob has been really interested in the potty. He would always follow us to the bathroom and we would explain what we were doing, how to wipe, flush, wipe hands, etc. He's always LOVED the flushing part, ha. We bought the Baby Bjorn potty chair and always kept it in the bathroom so after we went, we would point to it and tell him that was Jacob's potty and where he needed to go. That big boys went to the potty and babies used diapers, etc. (We use the big boy/baby example quite a bit in our house when we explain things about Jacob/Noah.)

So after "prepping" him like that for a few months...we were ready! I had no idea how to start. Jacob hates to be dirty, so I had heard that for kids like that you should just put them in underwear immediately. As soon as they felt themselves going, they would hate being wet/dirty and everything would be sunshine and rainbows and you're done. HA! Not so much. It just ended up causing me to clean up more and more pee all over our house. So clearly..we needed to try something else. I went out and bought some training underwear. Basically just underwear but it's more padded inside. Same problem as before. He would go without hesitation then look at me and say "uh oh...what happened?!!?" Just a little bit less got on our floors.  So that was gone. Pull-ups didn't work then either because it feels just like a diaper. Ugh. So, I tried putting him on the potty all the time and giving him a treat just for staying on the potty. That worked a little better, but, he was on the potty ALL. DAY. LONG. I hated to take him off if he was okay sitting there, but, I also didn't know how to teach him how to run to the potty when he needed to go. I knew that wasn't right either. This had been over a week now. There were a few days where I wanted to give up and was so tired of cleaninig up accidents. I never once went back to letting him wear a diaper, but, was definitely tempted. Finally, as a last resort, I just kept him naked. Well, naked from the waist down.

FINALLY! SUCCESS! For whatever reason, him being naked worked the best. The first time he needed to go he just looked around and ran to his potty. He was so afraid to just go being naked that he sought after his potty chair. It was so awesome to see this little revelation in his brain. So, of course, we made a HUGE deal about it. Then, we started sticker charts. He would get 2 stickers for pee pee, 3 for poo poo. (It took almost 2 weeks for him to poop in the potty.) He loved getting stickers and a treat (a cookie or a few M&Ms) each time he used the potty. We made him take the bowl from the chair and dump it in the toilet and flush. If he had an accident, he then had to help me clean it up. All of this independence helped tremendously. He was finally getting it!!

We told him once he filled up his sticker chart he could get a new car. (His favorite thing ever.) When we first started, it was taking about a week or so to get all of his stickers.) Then, he started going about 5 or 6 times a day! The only bad thing was...he was still naked! I couldn't really take him anywhere if I wanted him to use the potty. If we had to leave, I just put a pull-up on him and he went in that. Finally after about 2 weeks of non-stop nakedness and him finally getting it down going about 6x a day in the potty, I re-introduced his underwear. It worked this time. After about a week of that, he wore his shorts over the underwear. Another success! Also, anytime we went to someone else's house, we just brought his big potty chair and he would use it there.

I also want to make sure I note that we taught him how to pee sitting down. I read that if you teach a boy to potty by standing up to pee, then, it will be incredibly hard for them to learn to poop in the potty because they think they're supposed to stand to use the bathroom. So, thankfully, he has no issues with pooping in the potty and we can learn standing up later. Well, his Daddy can teach him that one. Ha. :)

We noticed that Jacob was holding it longer and longer. He would sometimes hold it for up to 6 or 7 hours at a time! I always have underwear on him unless we leave the house or he's sleeping. He was keeping his pull-up dry at naptime and sometimes overnight!! We were so proud! Last step was getting him to go in public on the big potty. We couldn't drag that potty chair around with us everywhere. So about 2 weeks ago, he did it for the first time with our help holding him and now he's been several times since. I am soooo happy, excited and proud of him. I wanted to quit a few times, but, it's been awesome to watch him do this (a lot of the work all on his own!) One of the times I was BEYOND frustrated with trying to teach Jacob, I was reading online for some tips. I read that potty training is super frustrating and it can be so easy to get upset with your child. But, it's just like teaching them anything else. We didn't get mad at them when they were learning to walk and would occassionally stumble and fall down. So, we can't get upset at accidents. I haven't forgotten that and it changed my perspective with the whole thing.

Each day he's gotten better and better. I used to have to be in the room with him to remind him and ask him 87 times a day if he needed to go. Now, he goes all on his own! He got to pick out his own special underwear and he loves them. It's amazing how much older your baby looks in underwear and out of diapers.

But, I'm happy to say that he hasn't worn a diaper in almost 2 months and he's been accident free for the last 2 weeks. Also, I'm phasing him out of stickers/treats/rewards. We got to a point a few weeks ago where I had to start putting 50 spots on a sticker sheet b/c he was burning through them so fast for a new car. We even reduced the stickers to 1 for pee and 2 for poo poo. He doesn't ask for stickers as much anymore, it's just part of his routine to go in the potty. He's doing awesome. So, all in all, I would say it took us about a month and a half to get it completely down...almost 2 months. But, I'm so happy we're back to just one boy in diapers. What a relief!!!! :)