Oh my goodness, how on earth do you potty train a boy??? I wish he weren't ready, but fact is, he is. I have tried to deny it and tell myself that he isn't, but the fact remains that he will be potty training himself soon if I don't get on the ball. How do I know he is ready, you ask? Well, the other day as I was changing Bethany's diaper, in the kitchen I heard: "Go poo-poo on the potty! Good job! Hold it down!" These are all of the things that I tell him when I occasionally sit him on his little porta-potty. When I went into the kitchen, not only was he sitting on his little potty, but he had pulled his little elastic pants down and pulled his diaper off and was pretending to grunt and strain. It was HILARIOUS until I realized...it's time. So, in the spirit of potty training, we bought Elmo underwear to go with the Thomas the train underwear he already has. He loved the Elmo undies so much, I put them on him tonight and let him prance around in them. He had his first accident tonight at his play table. He stopped and had a shocked look on his face, clasped his cheeks with the palms of his hands and proclaimed loudly: "Oh no!!!". I gave him a little towel and told him to clean it up and then I told him to take off his undies. He did all of this, then took it upon himself to sit on the potty one more time. I really am not sure how all of this is going to go. From all of the tips that I have received from friends and family, here is what we are going to do: Tomorrow starts the run around in nothing but your undies and socks day. I bought a timer tonight that has a lovely ding. I am going to make Josiah sit on the potty for 2 minutes every 20-30 minutes ALL DAY LONG. I made a sticker chart for Josiah and he will get one sticker for sitting on the potty, 2 stickers for pee-peeing and 3 stickers for poo-pooing. I decided not to go with the candy reward system yet because Josiah has never had candy besides a sucker at the DR's office and sugar tends to be a love for our family, so I do not want to start on this road unless I have to. I have promised myself not to get mad or upset if I have messes to clean up, this is just part of the fun. Also, as much as possible, Josiah will be responsible for cleaning up his accidents. I will let you know how this goes...
Guess what else it is time for? I think it is time for Josiah to make the transition from the crib to a bed. First of all, my little boy is HUGE and I can't believe he still fits in the crib, but he does. We have a convertible bed given to us by a cousin, so we are going to move Josiah's crib to the guest room for Ms. Bethany and set up Josiah's bed. I really am interested to see how this goes...it ought to be fun!
It is also time for one more thing: goodbye buddy! Josiah calls his trusty pacifier sidekick his buddy. I have all but eliminated it from everyday life, but I think it is totally time for it to go as I can see a sort of overbite forming with Josiah's teeth. Right now, he only uses it for bedtime and church. Bedtime I am not necessarily worried about, but church scares me. Unless he has his buddy, he just will not be quiet! I guess I am going to have to increase the discipline measures as well!
Don't worry, I am not going to do all of these things at one time...that would be a recipe for disaster! I will slowly but surely get around to making these changes before Josiah is five...or maybe a little sooner!
3 comments:
So much for the typical advice, "Don't try to p-t your children around a major life event, such as the birth of a new baby"! :-) I wish I had ignored it when Keith showed definite signs of potty-train-ability at 18 m/o, but I was expecting Seth in a month, and didn't want a regression. Now I wish I had at least *tried*!
Josiah sounds like a combo of Keith & Seth when it came to p-t -- Seth was early and pretty much made my p-t him (he was pulling off his diapers and going in the floor), while Keith was horrified when he found himself inside the house diaper-less one time and needed to pee. He said with a touch of anguish in his voice, "Oh, no, mommy -- pee-pee!" I thought he had already gone, but he hadn't, so I rushed him to the potty, and then started the "no diapers in the house" routine like you talked about, and the rest is history! (No, it wasn't that easy -- there were plenty of accidents, but he got it!)
Leaving them unclothed worked the fastest for me. But first I would do the timer thing until they knew which muscle released it.
Have fun with all that!
Josiah will get there. It will happen although some days it may seem like it never will. Some train faster than others, and they are definitely all different! Here it's two down and one to go. Pretty soon I'll be retiring the diaper bag and remembering what a purse is again.
As for the loss of the pacifier, Josiah will make noise, but in time he will learn that there's a time to be noisy and a time to be quiet. ;-)
Hang in there as this is just the beginning. There's plenty more challenges, frustrations, memories, and joy headed your way!
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