Potty Training ~ Cold Turkey

Landon is newly potty trained. I was actually impressed by how quickly it happened. I was dreading it after hearing all the horror stories of kids hiding their poop in the VCR (true story) and other stories of resistance. We already had been introducing the idea and the suggestion of going on the potty would sometimes incite a mild tantrum. I was thinking he would be in diapers until he was 20.

Landon was in the “not yet potty trained” class at preschool, and socially he was way beyond those kids (yeah… my kid’s the genius….). His teacher said that the only thing really keeping him from moving up into the 3-4 year old class was the potty training. This conversation happened on my first day of spring break from work. I figured what better time? We’re moving at the end of May and in order to rent out our house we’re going to have the carpets cleaned. I’ll have all week off to work with him on it. We might as well go for it now.

Monday after his nap we went to the store and bought big boy underwear. Thomas the Train, Cars, and a multi-pack that had Nemo on the front. We washed them and put them on first thing Tuesday. I announced that he was a big boy now and didn’t need to wear diapers anymore, and that from here on out, all pee and poop went in the potty. He’s had a potty chair in the bathroom since he was 18 months old and he would use it occasionally when we put him on it. We just never really pushed the issue. Tuesday he had 14 accidents, but he did make it to the potty a few times. Tuesday night I was thinking that for sure this was a bad idea, but I read about the whole 3 day potty training miracles and figured I would at least give it 3 days before I jumped ship. I was fully prepared to put a pull up on him at night (after all that is what you were “supposed” to do), but he announced that no – he was wearing underwear. I figured the worst that would happen is he would wake up wet and I would have to change the sheets. That happened.

Wednesday morning he had 5 accidents before his nap. I was encouraged that at the half way point of the day we hadn’t made it to the halfway point in the accident count. It was some progress at least! After his nap he only had 1 accident before bed, and that one was only a “half” of an accident. He started to pee, stopped it and ran to the potty and finished in the potty. He did the same deal at night time, but predicting that he would do this, I cut his liquids back after 5pm and made him go potty like 10 times before bed. He woke up dry. I was shocked. Everyone I tell is shocked. I was even more shocked when he went through all of Thursday with NO accidents and woke up Friday morning dry. He’s had a handful of accidents since then, most of them very minor.

Really I found that the best way we approached it was by praising and emphasizing the importance of keeping his underwear dry (that’s the goal anyways right?) I started off asking him and trying to take him to the potty every 30 minutes, but he became very resistant to it. I finally just reminded him that if he had to go to run to the potty but left it at that. He knew when he had to go and I think that he was just irritated when I made him sit on the potty when he didn’t have to go. We also did reward him with 1 jellybean if he peed in the potty and 2 if he pooped. I think that helped him get over the motivation hump to use it. We “ran out” of jellybeans on the 3rd day and it didn’t affect him at all.

So all of you who are stressing about potty training your 2 1/2 year old boy… go for it. You might be surprised! Anyone else have a super fast potty training experiences? I’m hoping that it goes as smoothly for Riley as it did for Landon. Thought I have a good chunk of time before I would even think of starting I’m pretty sure I’ll start much sooner the second time around.