2010-01 - Potty Training

Be thankful there are no pictures I just needed a forum to document what mean parents we are. It all started last Thursday (today is Tuesday). Michael was in rare form while Gretchen was changing his diaper for bed: wiggling and kicking. He had been doing that a little for quite a while, but that night was bad, and we were both tired of it. So, it had pushed us a bit too far, and I told him how lucky he was that we were even still changing his diapers. How some parents just stop and the kids have to do it themselves. On and on about how he should be thankful that we are still doing that for him, so he shouldn't be kicking us. And so on.

Well, it seems that made a bit of an impact, because the next day (Friday) he went all day in regular underwear. Not even a Pull-Up. And it was dry all day as well. He even pooped a little bit.

Then Saturday he had a tiny accident (while playing), but stopped and finished in the toilet. And later he pooped for real. It was a long time of sitting and reading stories, but we finally just left him alone (even though he didn't want us to), and that worked.

And now it has been a dry Monday and Tuesday, with more pooping today (a little quicker, but still a lot of fuss prior).

All starting from scaring him into getting out of his diapers. Guess you do whatever it takes. Still, I feel a bit bad for any trauma that may be going on in his mind about wearing a diaper.

I'll tack on the e-mail Gretchen sent out on Saturday night.

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Well, just wanted to let you know that Michael has been REALLY potty training for 2 days now. In training underpants! (not pullups, except for nap, and a diaper for bedtime.) He was dry ALL yesterday, EVEN after nap (his pullup was dry) and he only had one tiny accident where he started peeing today, and then stopped, and then finished in the toilet (and then we changed clothes.) Yesterday he also did a tiny poop in the toilet. But today he obviously needed to poop more, and Tim and I held firm to the notion that we would NOT let him have a diaper just to poop. And so tonight, after sitting on the toilet for about 15 minutes, he pooped a BIG poop! (He was excitedly describing it as "it looks like candy canes!" We couldn't get too excited about the candy cane idea, but we were very excited about the pooping! And he kept saying, "Thanks for cheering me up, Mommy and Daddy, for pooping!") DAVE: Now his reward is playing on the itouch a little before he goes to bed. And a big sticker that says, "I'm a big kid now!" Yesterday's rewards were stickers on his chart, pie at Baker's Square, and choosing a candy bar (the tiny tiny size) from the selection at Tim's work. So, it has been terribly exciting around here; I think I might faint. (Just kidding.)
Love to all: thanks for all your support in various ways (Dave for the itouch, Mom for introducing him to the idea of a pull up that he wore over his sweatpants when he was about 2, and Bob and Karen for laying the groundwork in teaching Tim (so that we could teach Michael) to bend over so that wiping him up was pretty easy.
Yes, and that's all we are going to share for a little while now. Really.
Love,