Potty Training Little Man

Two months ago Little Man pooped on the potty chair.  Exciting, it was.  Repetitive, it was not.  About a month ago we were at Target and I let him pick out a pack of underwear, he picked Thomas the Train, and the next day we gave them a shot.

It went pretty horribly, but I wanted to give it a try so he would maybe get an idea of what it was we've been asking him to do.  Over the course of a few hours he burned through all 6 pairs of underwear, and though he sat several times on the potty chair, he never actually peed or pooped in it.  He wasn't very interested in the whole deal so I declared he wasn't quite ready.

Earlier this week we were all in the living room and he looked at me and Spencer and said, "Poop!"  We asked, "Do you have to go poop?" and he told us, "Potty chair!"

There's one thing about potty training... nothing makes you jump up off the ground quite as fast as a toddler telling you he or she wants to use the potty!

I snatched him up, rushed him to the potty chair and pulled off his diaper.  There was a little bitty poop in the diaper so I sat him down and told him to push the poopies out.  I rubbed his lower back and helped him gently push on his lower abdomen to help him find the right muscles to use to help it come out.

And he pooped!

Yesterday we did lots of sitting on the potty, and had lots of successful pees, got lots of pieces of cookies, and lots of little stickers for him to put on a piece of construction paper with his name printed in the middle (not quite a sticker "chart" but a sticker sheet).

Today he sat on the potty first thing, and even though his diaper was soaked, he still had some left and went in the potty.  After that I put him in underwear and told him not to pee in them, pee goes in the potty chair.  After a couple minutes he had a little accident.  After I cleaned him up and changed his underwear I set a timer that I found online (called "cool timer") and every time he hears the fun bugle alarm he gets excited and runs for the potty chair to sit.  We've had Thomas and Friends on all morning as a potty helper, and if he doesn't want to sit I just pause the show until he sits and then start it up again.

This morning I've been setting the timer for 10 minutes starting when he gets off the potty chair from a try.  If he actually pees I set it for 15 minutes.  The time will get longer as he gets better at it, but will max out at 30 minutes for quite a while.  Even at that point I'll be asking him after 15 minutes if he needs to go potty, and then making him try after 30.

He's gone potty several times today and has had no accidents since that first one right away this morning! Quite a difference since the last time we put him in underwear!  We'll keep this up unless he completely loses interest and refuses to go, then we'll wait a month or so and try again.  Though it takes a lot of vigilance in these early stages, I'll be happy when he doesn't need diapers during the waking part of the day anymore!