I had been meaning to tackle the potty issue with Paul for a while, but it wasn't until the last week of Christmas break that I finally took the plunge. It really felt like a leap of faith because I was still debating up until the very night before the planned time. My plan of attack? The "three-day potty training" method I read about all over the internet.
I say "mostly" trained because he still wears a diaper at night, and he still isn't wearing big boy undies during the day. That's right. My boy goes commando every day. That seemed to be the winning factor to his potty-training success.
How did I do it? I literally spent three whole days in the kitchen with a naked-bottomed boy, building train sets and eating (and drinking!) snacks.
The first day went surprisingly well. I was not expecting Paul to be able to "hold it" for as long as he would. (Three hours was normal!) There were a few accidents in the beginning, but as soon as he realised he got a sticker, fruit snack, and a mommy dance every time he went in the toilet, he was gung ho about it the rest of the day! I thought, this is going to be a piece of cake!
Of course, pride comes before the fall. Enter day number two. I thought he did so well the first day, I could go ahead to introduce the undies on day two rather than day four. Boy was that a mistake! As soon as one of those undies touched his skin, he was a leaking faucet! We went through all of his undies in the first half of the day and the novelty of potty training was wearing off for Paul. His confidence and excitement were dwindling. He was starting to resist. I began to seriously doubt whether he was ready, and was almost ready to give it up all together. But, I decided to take my mom's advice and keep surging forward. I took off those silly undies (who needs them anyway?) and made up my mind to make this way of living his only option now. No more diapers during the day and that's that!
But what did that mean? Was I going to have to carry around a half-naked child and a portable potty everywhere? I crossed my fingers and put him in loose fitting pants for the second half of day two. Bingo! I found the perfect balance!
By day number three, his (and my) confidence sky-rocketed as he was going in the toilet most of the time with no accidents. It was awesome!
We only had a set-back a couple weeks ago when he experienced constipation for the first time, and he developed a fear of going #2 on the toilet. This resulted in him holding it until it was un-holdable, and at the most inconvenient times. One of those times we were playing outside with some friends and I thought he had stepped in some dog doo. I figured I would just clean his shoes once we got home. Well, I got some texts about an appointment I forgot about and was late for. I rushed Paul home to keep my appointment, only to find the inside of his pants and shoes were covered in his own doo. Not fun.
But he is back on track and doing better than ever. It's a great feeling to have that mountain mostly behind us. He seems a lot older now too. :)
