Potty Training

The plan has been to do potty training over Spring Break. Now while we have been thinking of doing this, I had not planned on John to quit sucking his thumb. I almost didn't do it because I thought it might be to much...to many life changes all within 2 weeks. However, I thought "Let's give it a try!" I studied up on the 3 day potty training guide because many people had said that it worked. So Friday night, I stayed up late, got everything ready such as a sticker chart, underwear laid out, the bathroom ready for potty training and cleared my schedule for the next 3 days. Miss Sophia got to spend the night with Nana Barb on Saturday since Matt was going to be in town and my mom would be at the house Sunday night to help with her while my attention was devoted to Mr. John.

Below are the Potty Training Bootcamp events and thoughts as I went through it...

Saturday (1st Day) - ACCIDENTS!!! We went through 12 pairs of underwear and I scrubbed the floor constantly! He got to put up 17 stickers because I constantly had him drinking all day long. I stayed by my little man's side the whole day. He seem to pee everywhere; however, he did get through his nap dry. We put stickers up, got little gifts, and ate a lot of candy! By the end of the day, I wasn't sure if I wanted to do this anymore. We were both exhausted. John was in the bath by 6:25 and in bed by 7:20. I was dreading the next day of Bootcamp.

Sunday (Day 2) - NO ACCIDENTS!! John woke up dry and made it to the potty everytime. He didn't poop all day so we still needed to get this part of potty training completed. He did a great job and was excited to go to the potty each time. My mom got here on Sunday night and later said " I don't know who looked more tired....Jodi or John."

Monday (Day 3) - John woke up dry again! He had one accident and it was when he pooped. While I took Sophia to the doctor, he dribbled a little bit on his underwear. He threw up his hands and said " I just want to go to Pop's house!" (This was what he had chosen as his gift when he got potty trained.) My mom said she almost cried. I decided that since he wanted to go so badly, and he had been consistant in making it to the bathroom for peeing...we should get to Houston. We packed up and were on the road. He made it to Houston with no accidents!!

The rest of the week went well. He is a typical little boy...and 2 1/2 years old...he gets busy and waits until the last minute. Most of the time he makes it, but there have been a couple of accidents. One of the harder parts, that I hadn't thought much about, is watching his liquid intake after dinner. We try to have him not drink hardly anything to help with the night time. There have been times that I just wanted to put a pull-up on him, but we have decided to not do pull-ups....so he has been in big boy underpants since Saturday morning.

Good news...he pooped in the potty this morning for the first time! He was very excited. When he came back to the bathroom later to pee, he said "Where's my poop?" I explained to him about how we don't save our poop. He just shrugged his shoulders.

Another point....potty training boys is quite the experience. I think I scrubbed my bathroom floor 10 times in 3 days. You never know where that stream is going to go! I guess we will work on aim next!

John and his friend Ginger!

Funny story about Ginger...

I had heard that a great way to potty train boys is to let them go outside and pee. When I tried this with John, he looked at me and said "Mom, I not a dog."

When we were at the park and the bathrooms were locked, I convinced John to go outside. After he did it, he ran around saying "I peed like my friend Ginger!"