Potty Training? Its a Piece of Cake!

I had been dreading the whole potty training business for months and months, but it was all for nothing. I'm pretty sure Conner was the easiest potty trainer that has ever existed. We originally planned to potty train in April when I wasn't supposed to work for a couple of weeks. But then I got pregnant and felt like crap and wasn't about to deal with cleaning up accidents. So then we decided to wait until July when our summer travels were over. That turned out to be a great decision. In May Conner started occasionally telling me when he needed his diaper changed, he had NEVER been bothered by dirty diapers before. He was also starting to wake up in the morning with dry diapers a couple of times a week. I was afraid we might even miss our window of opportunity.

Conner and I had been reading books about potty training from the library for a long time. Luckily we ran into one called The Potty Train and since Conner is obsessed with trains it really hit home with him. He thought it was fun to go sit on the potty train. During the last week of diapers we started having Conner try to go potty a few times a day so he would get the idea. Then it was time for the big event. After he woke up one morning we put him in underwear. Thirty minutes later he pooped in them. Things weren't looking good, but we had Conner go to the bathroom frequently. We also set a timer for every 2 hours and if he didn't have any accidents by the time the timer went off then he got a small treat, like 2 M&Ms. Each day for a few days we set the timer for a half an hour longer. He didn't have anymore accidents those first 2 days so I stopped telling him to go to the bathroom and just reminded him to stay dry so he could get a treat. He had a few accidents in the next couple of days, but thanks to this underwear my mom helped me make there was no clean up besides getting new underwear and sometimes clean shorts.

I found these on Pinterest from http://itsourlongstory.blogspot.com/2012/01/diy-cloth-training-pants.html?showComment=1328030266224#c6638174278670575212 but of course made a boy version.

 

One week later Conner said he didn't want to put on a diaper at bedtime so we didn't. And that was that. In the last 3 months Conner has only had 1 accident while sleeping, and luckily it was just in the early morning so we didn't have to get up in the middle of the night to deal with it. He has never pooped his pants after that first morning. He has never gotten anything on the carpet so I've never had to clean that. His only bad accident was at Kohl's on a day that I drove the truck instead of the car and didn't have the spare underwear that I keep in the car. But I do take some responsibility in that one. I didn't expect Conner to come with me and at the last second he hopped in the car and I didn't think to ever ask him if he needed to go potty. Conner hasn't had any accidents in weeks and weeks and is pretty good about telling us when he needs to go. Although he can hold it a loooong time so that makes us nervous and sometimes we do make him go, especially when we start seeing a potty dance or before we leave the house.

 

We still can't believe how easy the whole thing has been and dread potty training the next child even more. We know it can't be this easy again and we won't be ready for dealing with lots of messes and accidents. But we will try to remember to wait until our kids are noticeably ready and not just when we feel like doing it.

 

We haven't gotten a new camera yet, but here is a picture we took the first time Conner sat on the potty a long time ago.