Potty Training, Week 1

he made me nervous here- I was afraid he was going to tip over head first into the stream bed

We've been working towards potty training Ocean for awhile now: first encouraging him to sit on the little potties, then getting him comfortable sitting on the toilet. The next big step was switching out diapers for underwear and focusing on using the toilet in a timely manner.

Last week we didn't have anything scheduled the first half of the week, which is unusual, so I took advantage of the lull to focus on getting Ocean more fully potty trained. That meant hanging out close to the bathroom, trading diapers for underpants, encouraging him to drink lots of water, and asking him every half hour if he needed to pee.

We stayed home all day Monday and Tuesday, then ventured out to the store Wednesday morning. He used the potty at Target and stayed dry while we were out and about. Thursday we ventured out again without any accidents, though I brought one of the little potties just in case we needed to use it. Friday we ran some errands and went for a short hike. While on our hike, Ocean had his first successful experience peeing outside. We'd actually tried peeing outside a couple weeks earlier when we were outside and he'd told me he had to pee, but he hadn't done anything then. He also peed in the potty in the car while we were stopped outside the post office.

There've been plenty of accidents (having to wash out Ocean's rain boots because the pee ran down his legs and into his boots was fun), but he's getting better at recognizing when he needs to go, so we're making it to the toilet earlier and earlier. Right now he mostly tells me he has to use the potty while he's peeing, though he did tell me before he started peeing when we were on our hike.

I think once we get to the point where he's recognizing he needs to go and then running to the bathroom and using the toilet, we'll have cleared the main hurdle. He's pooped and peed on the potty multiple times, so at least he doesn't have any hangups with using the toilet. He also doesn't seem to mind using public toilets or the great outdoors.

collecting all the sticks he sees

we were a bit further up this trail when he told me he needed to pee

I know you're not supposed to compare your kiddos, but I can't help comparing the potty training processes of the two boys. It's been just under two years since River went through the process, and it's interesting to see the similarities and differences.

Ocean hasn't taken off his diapers like River did, but he has taken off his pajamas and his pants, and then told us he has a dirty diaper.

I was thinking that River had potty trained in just a couple days, but in reading back through the posts I wrote about his potty training experience, I realized that wasn't the case. It actually took about a month before I was confident about his ability to stay reliably dry night and day. That's still pretty quick, but not as quick as I'd thought.

River potty trained at night quite early on in the process, and I thought Ocean was going to take longer. He really likes having a water bottle in bed with him, which means he's peeing a lot during the night/nap time.

However, despite drinking water during nap time and at bedtime, he's stayed dry during nap time the majority of the first week. Even more surprising, Sunday night he woke up in the middle of the night to pee, and stayed dry all night. The same thing happened Monday night. Monday he also went much longer stretches during the day in between potty breaks, yet didn't have any accidents. So the internal switch might have been flipped that says 'don't pee every five seconds, you can hold it a while longer.' <crossing my fingers and knocking on wood>

We're now working on week 2, but I'll talk about that next week.