So, it’s been a little over two weeks since we’ve done the 3 day potty training. Going in I thought it would work, but I still had my reservations that my child wouldn’t catch on and kept our diapers, just in case. I didn’t have the right attitude completely. Hubby on the other hand probably wouldn’t have thought about potty training until our son was closer to 3 years old. He wasn’t opposed, but he thought it might be a bit too soon.
Our son was 25.5 months old when I got around to potty training him, and it was a SUCCESS. Honestly I do think I could have done it sooner, I just didn’t think about it until after the holidays. A friend gifted us the e-book “3 day potty training”. Honestly it wasn’t a whole lot different than what you read on blogs or on babycenter.com.
My previous post explains what I had planned out for this process, and that was before I read the e-book. I don’t want tell how the book is different, because then you won’t buy your own copy, but I will share what I had planned to do, but didn’t.
Potty training is a learning process not only for the child, but I had to learn how C1 communicates to me. Honestly I didn’t understand at first and this created more accidents. C1 is slightly behind in his speech development and we have been working with a speech therapist. With this speech training, we have C1 repeat words back to us, and like most kids he will only repeat back the last word you say. So, when I would remind C1 to tell me if he needs to go potty, he would repeat back, “potty”. I thought he was just repeating back words, but it turns out, that was his way of telling me he needed to go. When I reminded him and he said nothing back, that was him saying he did not need to go. It worked like this for two and a half days. We would not get a spontaneous request to use the bathroom. Even toward the end of the third day I didn’t realize that C1 was telling me he had to go potty. A few weeks previous he learned to say our friends name “Bobby”, so i thought he was just saying the name. Wise Hubby figured out that “bobby” and “potty” sounded that same coming from him. So C1 knew he had to go potty, but we weren’t listening, he figured out to use sign language for potty, which he had learned a few months before from watching the “potty time” app.
The end of the third day we had to leave the house, Hubby needed a ride to the airport. We left the house, not feeling confident that C1 was potty trained. We decided, since we were out we, I, would go fabric shopping and out to dinner with a friend. Once we got to the store I showed C1 where the potty was and reminded him to tell me if he needed to go. While at the store C1 told me without a reminder, that he needed to go potty, and then again at the restaurant. I was so proud. On the way home, something started to stink in the car. I thought that we had a poo accident in the car. We got home, and guess what. No accident! Again, so proud. It was then that I was convinced that I had just potty trained C1 in 3 days. I knew we were never turning back to diapers. Day 4 was a church day, where I’m not with him for 2 hours to remind him, and don’t know if he will tell another adult if he needs to go. Usually if your kid has an accident, they will find you so you can take care of it. Well I picked him up after the 2hours and his pants were wet. I think he had his accident close to the end of the 2 hours because I don’t think any of the adults watching the kids noticed that he had an accident.
For the first week of being potty trained, he had one or less accidents a day. Some may not call that successful potty training, but I do. But keep in mind, that we also did the night time training, and the one or less a day includes night time. By week 2 of being potty trained he would say he needed to go potty, so we rushed him to the toilet and nothing would come out. This would repeat 3 or 4 times before he would poop in his underwear. I just think he had a hard time getting the poop out. This happened only a few times. Between day one and day two of training, C1 didn’t poop for almost a full day. Finally he told me he wanted a bath in the middle of the day, and as soon as he got in, he pooped, a big one. I think the warm water helped him relax. This was the first and only time he has went potty in the bath.
We mostly followed the game plan except for a few things.
*We did not use the punch card for poops. He only pooped a few times a day (which is normal), so we gave him a toy prize for going poop.
*We never put him in a pull-up. We used underwear for naps and night from day 1. I did have these pads from the hospital to put under him, so that if he did wet the bed, the sheets wouldn’t need changing.
*I learned quick that public restrooms are awkward for children. This will be the only removable potty seat I will buy. I love it because it folds up flat to fit into my purse and I can use it on any toilet. I should have gotten the cars one, but Diego was the cheapest, and C1 doesn’t seem to care. Seat Found HERE.
Night training I would say has taken a little longer. C1 still likes to have a drink before bed and it’s hard getting him off of that. I go to bed a few hours after C1 does, so just before I go to bed, I wake him up and have him go potty, and then put him back in bed. After two weeks of doing this, he has finally learned that it’s ok to get up to go potty. Two weeks after starting potty training, he will now get up on his own, wake us up and ask to go potty, then usually go back to bed. Sometimes he tries to prolong going to bed by saying he has to go potty, but all in all, I think he’s doing very well. The only “accidents” we have now is when he’s sitting on the toilet and his aim is not down, if you get my drift.
