Potty Training, Week 2

hmmm, too big for Sunshine's cradle

We made good progress this past week and it hasn't been quite the disaster I was afraid it would be. Though there's still time for that, of course :) I've always heard that boys are harder to potty train than girls and since we'll be doing this again in the near future with Ocean I need to record what we did in hopes of making things easier when it's Ocean's turn.

River started out spending time sitting on the potty (while watching the iPad) but he soon progressed to playing, then running and sitting on it when he needed to use it. So he can tell when he needs to poop or pee, which is a huge step in the process. If I haven't seen him sit on the potty for awhile I'll ask him if he needs to go. Sometimes he does, sometimes he tells me "no!" The number of accidents has decreased as the week has progressed.

He goes down for naps without a diaper and has had good success staying dry. The trick is making sure he has access to the potty as soon as he wakes up.

We were keeping him in diapers at night, but two nights ago after he woke up several times to pee, I decided it wasn't worth it and put him in underwear last night. We took him to the bathroom before we went to bed and he stayed dry all night. Whether we have a repeat of that tonight remains to be seen.

We've gone to Sunshine's fiddle lesson, run errands, and gone to Scouts without any accidents. I bring along the little potty and ask him when we leave the car and when we return if he needs to use it. I did the same with Sunshine and it worked quite well.  So far he's stayed dry while we're out and about, but there's a lot of potential for accidents since he doesn't usually tell us he needs to use the potty. At home he usually tells us after the fact that he peed in the potty. That doesn't work when we're in a store and there's no bathroom nearby. So we'll see what happens. Hopefully he gives us enough warning that we can find a bathroom in time. He has shown us that he can hold it, so I'm hoping we won't have too many accidents.

When we're home, River runs around in his underwear, which makes it easy to sit on the potty quickly. What makes it even easier is to have him wear loose pajama pants or pajama shorts. Since they're loose they're super easy to pull up and down as needed.

So two weeks into official potty training I'm cautiously optimistic about the whole thing :)

Potty Training, Week 1