The One with the Potty (Again)

Earlier this week, on Thursday, January 31, 2020, we officially began ATTEMPT #2 to potty train Squish. I spent some time here on my blog, reading through past posts about potty training the first 3 kids, and had a tiny bit of hope that maybe--just maybe!--we would find success this time with Squish. We tried for the first time about 6 weeks ago and he just wasn't having it. Surely he's ready now that he's 2 1/2, right??

I'm not so sure.

It's been a rough few days, y'all. It just hasn't seemed to "click" as well as it did with LO, Chase, and E. And we've been doing all of the same things: 24/7 access to the potty, an endless sippy cup of chocolate milk, unfettered access to electronics... all the things that worked in the past haven't quite seemed to work with sweet Squish.

Don't get me wrong--he's had a few successes on the potty. But those have been somewhat outnumbered by the accidents that have occurred elsewhere in the house. I typically like to potty train for the first few days with NOTHING on the bottom half, but that's proving to be difficult. We've got a pre-teen daughter and a dog: both reasons why it's not so great for a little guy to be strutting around half nakey.

I can't decide if I want to call it quits (again) or see it through for a few more days. I feel like the signs are there... I'm just waiting to see if/when it all "clicks" for him. Please pray for patience! I don't want to scar the boy with my irritability caused by having 3 other kids to care for, homeschooling, working part-time, and being 18 weeks pregnant with baby #5! There are a lot of stresses happening these days, and I really want this process to be as comfortable for Squish as possible. Lord help us!

Potty Time... again!

I guess it was inevitable. My baby. My sweet little baby E. He would eventually grow up, and it would no longer be acceptable for him to wear diapers. It seems we've reached such a time as this.

I decided last Friday would be a perfect time to begin this torturous joyous process. Prior to this, I had already Amazon'd all the necessities... a Thomas potty (complete with a sound sensor notification each time potty success is achieved!), Thomas big boy underwear, Thomas pull-ups, Thomas reward stickers, and a train-themed potty book. Whew! Not sure if you picked up on it or not, but the little guy is really into Thomas these days. ;)

So Friday morning, I introduced him to his cool new Thomas potty and put him in his new Thomas underwear. He requested to watch (you guessed it!) Thomas on the MBP, and proceeded to make himself nice and comfy as we began.

Assuming the position! Potty + TV = every person's dream come true.

I continuously set the timer on my Apple Watch for 5 minutes throughout the day, and brought him over to the potty each time it went off. Now, this guy knows how to do this right! Thomas (or Chuck the Truck) on the MBP, a large spill-proof cup of chocolate milk, a bowl of Cheez-Its, and he's in business! The kid literally seemed to spend more time ON his potty than OFF of it during the first few days. I think he was pretty happy with the setup and didn't see any need to change things up, except for the inconvenient times I that forced him to get up so I could go through the monotonous process of dumping the potty, washing his hands, and rewarding him with candy. Surely before the next 5 minutes were up, he'd request to be back on the potty, snacks and shows at the ready! I wouldn't be surprised if these were minimum 30-minute increments on the potty.

This process reminded me of a certain older brother of his who spent his potty training days sitting on the potty with a Wii remote in hand, playing Super Mario Bros. Wii or Dora the Explorer. See?

What a cutie.

Truly one of the best things about being the youngest has to be that you have older siblings who are always nearby to keep you entertained. In this case, it was a round of "roll the ball" that kept E's attention while chilling on the potty.

And if your big bro and sis aren't around, and the video entertainment and endless supply of chocolate milk aren't quite enough, you can always sing yourself a little song to pass the time...

This process also reminded me of the potty training experience with both LO and Chase, so I dug up these little gems to share here of these two announcing their potty successes. Enjoy!

LO, beginning the potty process at 2 1/2 years old:

Chase, beginning the potty process at 3 1/4 years old (between his time in the hospital for his heart surgeries, caths, etc., and, well, the fact that he's a boy, we waited until we felt he was ready to give potty training a successful effort, which ended up being a bit later than LO):

Ahhhmazing!

Okay, folks, for those of you who couldn't care less (yes, it's couldn't not could) about potty training, please move on to the next item in your Google Reader. But for the curious few out there (read: Grandmas), prepare to be amazed.

Last Wednesday, January 2nd, I began the lengthy and arduous sojourn of potty training Chase. I was expecting the worst. After all, I've always heard boys are harder to train than girls. And LO? She was a BREEZE in the potty training department. I never understood how we got so lucky with her. In fact, check out my concerns about potty training Chase in the except below from my post about what it was like to potty train LO that I wrote just over one year ago, on January 4, 2012:

I documented her "training" in this post...and I'm afraid she set the bar a bit too high. Seriously. It was like, 2 days of training and she was DONE. Trained. Fully trained both day and night. Zero accidents since. See what I mean? Set the bar too high. I'm scared thinking about what Chase has in store for us! Haha!

So of course I figured karma would bite us in the bottom when it came time to get Chase using the potty. It couldn't be that easy the second time around.

Or could it??

Today is Tuesday. I started potty training last Wednesday, so we're just shy of one full week of potty training. Let me give you the highlights:

• TWO accidental pees on his first day of training.
• TWO pees on the potty with his big boy underwear not pulled down (obviously in a hurry) on day 2.
• ONE poop in his big boy underwear on day 2.
• ZERO accidents in the past 4 days. No peeing on couches, carpet, flooring, car seats, beds... NADA!
• DRY DIAPERS in the mornings.
• DRY PULL-UPS after nap times.
• NO I am NOT kidding!!!

The kid will even fuss in his room after bedtime if he needs a trip to the potty. Last night hubs took Chase's little potty into his room when he was fussing and the boy pooped on the potty, went to sleep and, of course, woke up clean & dry.

Tonight I put him to bed and after our story, prayers, hugs and kisses, he informed me he needed to go potty. I took him to the kids' bathroom and helped him sit on the actual "big" potty. He pooped. The end.

It's seriously unbelievable, people. I had NO IDEA. Do you know how many potty training horror stories I've read? How many blogs about the drama and online forums about the frustrating and sometimes strange issues and problems parents face when it comes to potty training their kids??

I had NO idea. I am so shocked. And so blessed! I can't believe I'm not scrubbing poopy underwear 8 times a day and cleaning messes out of carpet left and right.

Honestly, the most frustrating part of this process had to be yesterday (Monday). See, Sunday we had church and then I had to work all day. This means hubs was home with the kids and had the joy of handling the potty training after I spent the previous 3 days solely responsible for it. Apparently Chase only peed like twice the whole day and never pooped. Like, EVER. For the entire day. Seriously?! I was so worried about the explosion that would be in store for me on Monday while hubs was at work.

But there was no explosion.

Instead, the kid went on his potty about 30 (THIRTY!!!) times throughout the day on Monday. I'm not even joking or exaggerating here, either. He'd pee. We'd dump and flush the potty, wash hands, get M&M's, and go back to the task at hand (usually Super Mario Bros. Wii). Then about 2 minutes later he'd pee again and we'd repeat the entire process. Then not 10 minutes later, he'd sit and poop on the potty, and we'd repeat again. About 30 seconds after that, he'd sit and pee. This went on All. Day. Long. I got the point of wondering if the kid was manipulating the "free candy after potty trips" policy and was purposely holding things in to go more frequently to get more candy. I wouldn't put it past him. He's no dummy.

So the worst part of this entire process was the fact that I had to get my lazy, tired, pregnant self up off the couch like 62 times yesterday to empty the potty chair and give out candy rewards. I'd say that's not too shabby, eh?

And let me just add that today was the first day I ventured out of the house with him to run errands now that we've started the potty training. The boy went pee twice while we were at Panera meeting one of my BFFs for lunch and then went pee again while we were at Buy Buy Baby adding a few things to my baby registry. Then we picked up LO from school and he was still clean & dry when we got home. I continue to be amazed by this kid!!!!!

Okay, enough potty talk. Here are a few pics of my little big boy from the past few days.

This first one is hilarious!!! Our first two days of training was without any coverage on the lower half. It certainly didn't keep this kid from his Wii games! LOL!

Still with the Wii. I loved that he was all curled up on the couch with no bottoms on. Seriously the faith I had in this kid's potty training! I wasn't worried one bit about a pee'd on couch!

By Day 3 we were able to start putting underwear on and taking it off during potty trips. He loves them!

So he needed to go potty, yes, but he was in the middle of a very important task on Super Mario Bros. Wii and felt it necessary to multitask. Just love this kid!!

Mommy kept him all kinds of hydrated during training to be sure there would be plenty of potty opportunities. I can't tell you how many sippy cups of watered down apple juice this kid blew threw over the past week! His kidneys sure are working great! Don't ya just love The Incredibles? ;)

Can't. Stop. Playing. Wii. Seriously, it's like a sickness for this kid. The first thing out of his mouth the past few mornings has been "I be Mario the red guy, you be the green one." Haha!

So there you have it! My next steps beginning tonight include removing diapers completely (he was just wearing them at night anyway) and putting him in Pull-Ups at night time instead. And at nap times, I'm opting out of Pull-Ups and going straight for the big boy underwear. And I'll attempt to keep the big boy underwear on him when we're out running errands, too, because I like to take chances like that. ;) Of course I'll keep a spare set of clothes handy just in case...

In summary, WAY TO GO, CHASE!!! YOU ARE MY ROCK STAR!!!

Potty Time!!

UPDATED WITH A VIDEO BELOW!!!

This is happening TODAY!!!

The boy has surprised me beyond belief already! I seriously was worried he wasn't ready. We talk about pee-pee on the potty, but he hasn't been too interested in actually doing it. But I've been talking it up for the past few days and he "seemed" to be on board with the idea.

He woke up this morning and I had out his potty (complete with a few new Cars stickers on it) and a stack of big boy underwear. I asked him to sit on the potty before breakfast and he had a lovely little meltdown. I decided not to push it so I asked if I could change his diaper before breakfast. He agreed and I took off his damp diaper and left it off. I then proceeded to get his breakfast ready. He seemed a little confused and asked about putting his pajama pants back on but I told him his Pop-Tart (don't judge) was ready, so he ran over and climbed into his chair at the table. He didn't seem to mind the fact that he was wearing nothing but his pajama shirt!

During breakfast, he told me he pooped. GASP! I went over to check and saw that he had peed in his chair. No worries! I explained that it was pee-pee, not poop, cleaned him up, and he went back to his breakfast.

After he got down from breakfast, he headed into the play area off the kitchen and a few minutes later he said something (can't remember what) and I looked up to see he had peed on one of the foam alphabet letters. No worries! I told him it was okay, but that we want to make sure the pee-pee went in the potty (which was sitting 2 feet from him in the play area).

That, my friends, as of this writing at 2:00 PM, was his LAST accident so far today!!! I can't even begin to believe it!! Boys are supposed to be much harder than girls, but he's so far proven to be just as easy as LO was to potty train! Keeping his bottom half naked with free roam of the house has been working wonderfully! I can't believe that he'll even stop in the middle of an activity (Wii, board games, etc.) to go sit on his potty and go pee-pee! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! I'm so happy I can't stand it!

Now I know this is only Day 1 and there's sure to be plenty of accidents ahead of us, but I'm just so impressed and proud of his progress already this morning. Simply amazing.

I'll keep ya posted on how things progress (since let's face it, all of you are dying to receive potty updates from me)!

Way to go, Chase!!!!!!

Potty Time?

I'm tired of diapers. Especially the dirty, stinky ones. I'm tired of changing them, and I'm tired of paying for them. I'm longing for the day we get Chase out of diapers, and I recently started thinking we'd give it a try sooner than later. But my mommy instinct is telling me he's just not quite ready to tackle that yet.

((sigh))

I looked back to see when we potty trained LO, and remembered it wasn't until after we returned home following Chase's birth and Norwood when she was 2 1/2 years old. I documented her "training" in this post (also copied below for your reading pleasure) and I'm afraid she set the bar a bit too high. Seriously. It was like, 2 days of training and she was DONE. Trained. Fully trained both day and night. Zero accidents since. See what I mean? Set the bar too high. I'm scared thinking about what Chase has in store for us! Haha!

Of course, I also have the heart mom dilemma of potty training him before his Fontan. So if we wait until he's 2 1/2, that'll be in April. Chances are, with him being so chunktastic, that his Fontan could take place as early as this summer/fall ((shudder)). And let's remember he's a boy, and I think I've heard boys are harder than girls to potty train? So I just don't know what to do. I try to keep my parenting timeline with Chase as close to LO's as possible, because I want him to be treated the same and not feel different because of his special heart, and being consistent with the kids is one way I feel I can do this from an early age. But I also don't want to be spinning my wheels for nothing! Ugh. Anyone have any thoughts/comments to help a mama out??

For your reading pleasure, here's a post I wrote last January about LO's potty successes. Enjoy the video, too -- it's one of my faves of that little girl of mine!

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Potty Time!

Guess who finally started potty training the day after she turned 2 1/2? Yep! That's right! Our sweet LO has officially begun the process of ditching the diapers (Amen!)! Yesterday was our first day. I'll be honest, I had NO IDEA where to start. I've read about so many different approaches to potty training, from putting her in pull-ups all day, to going straight to "big girl" panties, to letting her run around the house completely naked for three days to magically do the trick. After much thought, I decided it would be best for us to go straight to the big girl panties during the day, and pull-ups during nap time and nighttime. My assumption is that this would be the best way for her to know when she's had an accident, plus it would eliminate transitioning from pull-ups to panties.

I consider our first day to be a complete success, although we technically had a 50% success rate. Her first accident was on the bean bag we bought her for her first birthday. That was my fault -- I should've known better than to leave the bean bag in the room. Then she headed towards the carpet in her play area and I caught her in the act and put her on the potty. Then later in the day she went twice on her potty! Woot! I was so excited!!! She got a few mini M&M's and an Elmo sticker each time. At nap time she wore a pull-up and woke up poopy, which I sort of expected. Later in the afternoon she went on the carpet outside the bathroom (again, my bad -- I thought daddy was watching her at the time), but then last night she went in the potty again for the third time! I figure if she uses the potty 3 times on her first day, that's a pretty good first day!!! She woke up very wet this morning, which really didn't surprise me (I understand the nighttime training usually comes later after she masters the daytime). She had one accident this morning where she peed on the hardwood floor standing 2 feet from hubs -- I'm not sure why. But I figure we just stick with this and try to be consistent and hopefully she will figure this out soon. It's really hard to keep her off the couches and carpeted areas, so I hope it doesn't take forever! :)

Here she is announcing to the world what she did yesterday!

Potty Update

I am amazed at the progress LO has made in just 4 short days of potty training! She had 3 accidents Tuesday (her first day), then ONE Wednesday morning, and ZERO since then! That's right! She hasn't had an accident since Wednesday morning and it is currently Friday afternoon. Wow! I had no idea she'd do so well! She already knows when it's time to go and heads to the potty. She's even pooped on the potty Wednesday, Thursday and today! I absolutely cannot believe this craziness! And, she's even woken up dry from naps for the past 2 days and overnight this morning. I've been dreading this potty training because I was letting myself get overwhelmed with all that it will entail, but it's been such smooth sailing with LO! What a big girl!!!

So I guess our next step will be to get her to go on the "big" potty. She already turns the bathroom light on/off, flushes the big potty (after mommy or daddy empty her little potty into it) and stands on her stool and washes her hands by herself. This is so not the huge hurdle I was afraid it would be!

I'm so proud of my wonderfully amazing BIG GIRL!!!

Potty Time!

Guess who finally started potty training the day after she turned 2 1/2? Yep! That's right! Our sweet LO has officially begun the process of ditching the diapers (Amen!)! Yesterday was our first day. I'll be honest, I had NO IDEA where to start. I've read about so many different approaches to potty training, from putting her in pull-ups all day, to going straight to "big girl" panties, to letting her run around the house completely naked for three days to magically do the trick. After much thought, I decided it would be best for us to go straight to the big girl panties during the day, and pull-ups during nap time and nighttime. My assumption is that this would be the best way for her to know when she's had an accident, plus it would eliminate transitioning from pull-ups to panties.

I consider our first day to be a complete success, although we technically had a 50% success rate. Her first accident was on the bean bag we bought her for her first birthday. That was my fault -- I should've known better than to leave the bean bag in the room. Then she headed towards the carpet in her play area and I caught her in the act and put her on the potty. Then later in the day she went twice on her potty! Woot! I was so excited!!! She got a few mini M&Ms and an Elmo sticker each time. At nap time she wore a pull-up and woke up poopy, which I sort of expected. Later in the afternoon she went on the carpet outside the bathroom (again, my bad -- I thought daddy was watching her at the time), but then last night she went in the potty again for the third time! I figure if she uses the potty 3 times on her first day, that's a pretty good first day!!! She woke up very wet this morning, which really didn't surprise me (I understand the nighttime training usually comes later after she masters the daytime). She had one accident this morning where she peed on the hardwood floor standing 2 feet from hubs -- I'm not sure why. But I figure we just stick with this and try to be consistent and hopefully she will figure this out soon. It's really hard to keep her off the couches and carpeted areas, so I hope it doesn't take forever! :)

Here she is announcing to the world what she did yesterday!



On an unrelated note, I took Chase to see his pediatrician yesterday to have him look at his tongue to see if the thrush has cleared up yet or not. His tongue still had a white layer on it and I wasn't comfortable with the nurse I spoke to when I called just calling in another week of treatment (he'd already been on Nystatin for 2 weeks), so I asked for an appointment to see his doctor. So what did the doc say after checking out Chase's tongue? He doesn't have thrush. He never did. Whaa?? This is what I had been saying from the beginning. I just thought he had some white color on his tongue from breastmilk. I guess I should trust my mommy intuition! Regardless, I'm happy that he's fine and we don't have to continue any treatment for thrush. Hubs is especially happy because he's the one that's been soaking all of Chase's bottle stuff, syringes, pacis, etc. in vinegar water and then boiling them every night for the past 2 weeks! Sheesh!!

I took this little video of Chase while we were in the waiting room at the doctor's office. I have to hide the camera from him, otherwise he stares at it and refuses to laugh or smile!