Wednesday, October 20, 2010

News Update

First Time Mom Takes on 3 Day Potty Training

Day 1 consisted of having the boy child throw away all of the diapers and then giving him new big boy underpants and telling him to keep them dry and tell me when he needed to use the potty. Only a first time mom would fall for this.

What it really meant was that I was no more than arm's length away from boy child for 15 hours straight. When he would start to have an accident I would pick him up and run with him to the bathroom to get him to finish in the potty. We'd then start with fresh underpants. By 10:00 am I had a laundry basket with 8 pairs of wet underpants. His, not mine. Now, sometimes he would run on his own to the bathroom and sometimes would make it to the potty, sometimes not. I did see some clear signs that he was getting the idea.

Literally hundreds of times I asked him if his underpants were dry, then praised if they were. Hundreds of times I told him to tell me when he had to go. Lots of times I cleaned up wet spots on the tile floor, kitchen chairs, carpet, bathroom floor, and bathtub. Yes, empty bathtub. Don't ask.

The boy child refused to nap. He finally fell asleep at the kitchen snack while enjoying a treat for peeing in the potty. My salvation had arrived! Victory was mine!

It lasted for a glorious 90 minutes, and he remained dry the entire time.
The evening brought several more accidents and successes. Getting him to sleep at regular bedtime was not one of the successes. Each time we went in his room he asked to go to the potty. We'd go, and he'd play around. This was repeated several times. The one time I didn't fall for it he peed on his bedroom floor. He finally went to bed at 9:45pm. At 2:00 am he was whining in his sleep. I checked on him and his shirt, underpants, and sheet were soaked and cold. I woke him up to take him to the potty and change into dry clothes and sheets. By then he wanted nothing to do with going back to sleep. We went downstairs and watched a little Nick Jr. and rocked in the chair until he was drowsy. I put him back in bed at 3:00 am. I didn't wake him until 7:00 am this morning and was pleasantly surprised to find him and the bed perfectly dry! That's 5 hours in my book! Let me tell you, this kid has NEVER woken with a dry diaper.

This plan does not allow one to do anything else. No cooking, cleaning, laundry, watching tv, talking on the phone, or paying attention to anything other than the boy child.

We are 5 hours into day 2 and I'm questioning my sanity for even trying this. However, I am committed to the entire 3 days, by which time I've been assured that he will get it. I sure hope so!

7 comments:

  1. Well make sure to let us know how it goes...I'm scared of potty training so if this works for you, you will be recruited as my mentor.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brenda from CA2:37 PM

    You go girl! As my mom always says... "He won't go to college (peeing his pants)" In my case it was, "He won't go to college chewing sugar packets." don't even ask!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rock on! I can't wait to hear how things go!

    I don't think I'll have the sanity to try this with the boys when their time comes. Nope, just not seeing it. They may just have to go to college in diapers. Haha!

    ReplyDelete
  4. only a teacher has that kind of patients. Way to go mom. He is so smart, he will get it (and then since your a first time mom, you want to know what always happend in our house......wait for it....the squirts, so you have to go back to diappers or have runny poo all the place. just an fyi for you.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Really?!? 3 days? Maybe I will try this with Victoria!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Glad to hear it is going well and that the remaining days go as smoothly. Our day 2 (which was an unplanned event so I gave up) was horrible.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous11:40 AM

    Let me know how it goes. When Miles is a little older we will be trying the 3 day training as well!

    ReplyDelete