Submitted by Jessica G. in Utah (you can read more by visiting Jessica’s site here)
After taking nearly a year for da Boo to get the hang of the whole potty business and trying every single method I could find, I thought the Boy wouldn’t be nearly as hard. After all, he had a solid role model in his big sister. He’s been practicing sitting on the potty for months (we won’t mention the screaming fits that took place whenever something actually came out into the potty) and he waking up from naps still dry. No biggie, right?
Yeah.
Here’s what I am doing:
- Potty seat on the big potty and little kid training potty right there. He gets a choice! Lucky kid!
- Took him to the dollar store where he picked out some cool prizes and such. They are in their own special basket in the bathroom, just waiting for him to have success, then he can pick one.
- Before, I would give him a chocolate chip any time he sat on the potty. Then he found my stash. We’re not doing that anymore.
- I hid all the pull-ups in another room. Now, he cannot insist on those instead because look! They’re gone!
- Every 20 minutes, we stop what we’re doing and sit on the potty. I’ve even got a timer going.
- He would barely press his cheeks to the seat before insisting that he was done and it was time to get off the potty. So I got some of the magic growing capsules - the kind with little sponge things inside that you have to dissolve in warm water. Now, when he sits down, he gets to pick a capsule. He sits on the potty, happily flicking the capsule around until it opens fully. Then he can get off and can play with his new little sponge thingy.
- He gets to choose his underwear for today. He was rather disappointed to find that when he put on his Lightning McQueen underwear, his favorite race car was on his bum and he couldn’t see it. So he’s been wearing the backwards. Fine with me! It’s not like little boys use the “trap door” all that well anyway!
- After the first week of potty training, whenever he has an accident, he will have only plain white underwear. This was the big moment for da Boo…after peeing on Dora a few times and having to wear plain panties, she finally got the concept. We’ll let the Boy get the basics going before we throw this one at him.
- When he has an accident, he puts his wet clothes in the washing machine and then uses a kid wipe to clean himself off. I’m the one scrubbing the carpet but depending on how this goes, he may have to help me.
- He gets a pull-up during naps and sleeping through the night. He gets changed out of them almost immediately and eventually, we’ll phase these out.
So far…it’s not going well.
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on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at 6:58 am and is filed under Advice, Funny Stories, Parenting, Toddlers.
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I just went through this with my son…we did a lot of the same things. Getting rid of the Pull-Ups (except when sleeping) was definitely key! We also did the “every 20 minutes” thing. It took about 2 weeks to get it down, but now we are down to 1-2 accidents a week at the most!
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