Hellobee

Charlie is now officially potty trained! Well at least, he’s mostly potty trained during the day… we’ll tackle night training next.

Overall we’ve learned a lot from the process (both what went well and what we screwed up), so I thought we’d share!

Preparation

Before we got started, we read two books that turned out to be gamechangers for us.

The first one is called Yummy Yucky, by Leslie Patricelli.  It is a really simple book that shows things that are yummy, and things that are yucky. I have to admit, I thought it was the world’s dumbest book when I first read it. But then Charlie quickly caught on that some things are “yucky” and to be avoided. That was a huge aha for him, and it set him up really well for potty training.

The second book is called, Prince of the Potty, by Nora Gaydos. (There’s also a version of this book called Princess of the Potty, for girls.)  It’s about a little boy who decides that wet and sticky diapers are “yucky” and that he wants to start using the potty. Then he starts using it, and his parents reward him with underwear.

Charlie and I read this book every single day for a month or so before we even started potty training. We paid special attention to the page where the little boy decides that that diapers are “yucky.” I would say out loud, “Wet diapers are yucky!! I don’t want to wear a wet diaper!” And Charlie would respond, “I don’t want to wear a wet diaper either!”

This was a huge success for us. Charlie really decided that he was ready to potty train because he didn’t like yucky diapers. This really helped us stick it out through the rough patches, as the motivation was coming as much from him as from us.

What we did (pee training)

Bee’s mom bought a bunch of boxer briefs with stuff that Charlie liked on it. One underwear had a robot, another had a racing car, etc. He loved them all! (She also bought some more classic underwear that were cut like “tighty-whities,” but he had trouble getting them off on his own.)

Then two weekends ago, we put him in his underwear on a Friday night and told him that he was going to be the Prince of the Potty. He was so excited! He kept looking down at the robot on his underwear and smiling.

We made sure he was hydrated and that whole weekend, we sat him down on the potty every 30 minutes or so. Some other books/systems recommend that you give your toddler lots of drinks and salted foods (to keep them thirsty). We didn’t do this and I don’t think it slowed him down at all. What we did do is make sure that he sat down on his potty very frequently.

Then when he did pee, we would make a big deal out of it and say that he was the Prince of the Potty! We would sing and clap and dance and all that good stuff. I can truly say that he loved the whole process. In fact, he started letting us know every single time he wanted to pee even a tiny amount. This was totally fine, as I think it’s much better for him to pee too much versus not peeing enough and having an accident. Over time, he’s gotten better about not asking to pee every 10-15 minutes.

He had a couple pee mistakes the first two days, and that really motivated him to use the potty more. We just treated it like it was no big deal. There’s a section of the Prince of the Potty book that talks about how accidents are no big deal, and so I would repeat verbatim that section to him when he had an accident so that he knew it was ok.

What we did (poop training)

Charlie’s poop training didn’t go as smoothly. So far, he has successfully gone in the potty several times. However, we started his number two training before we were done dealing with his constipation. We’ve started dealing with that through diet as described here, but that work is still ongoing.

One day during training, his constipation got bad so we had to use an infant glycerin suppository to give him relief.  Oh my, that stuff really works! It helped us realize though that we shouldn’t be so shy about helping him through his issues. So today we bought some Miralax, to help Charlie deal with his intermittent constipation in the short term. We are going to continue with the dietary changes, to see if we can achieve a long-term solution through diet. But potty training is hard enough; it just makes sense to us to make sure he doesn’t have to wrestle with constipation too.

If he weren’t going through potty training now, we would continue with dealing with his constipation through diet alone. But since he’s in training now, we’re definitely going to try Miralax.

Things we did wrong

* We should’ve eliminated his evening bottle earlier – Charlie still takes a bottle of milk at night. (We brush his teeth during his bath, and then again after he takes his evening bottle.) So now when we get him ready for bed, we will put on his overnight diaper and then have to take it off so he can go pee before he goes to bed. Also, sometimes he will wake up in the middle of the night and ask to use the potty to go pee. In retrospect, we should’ve eliminated his evening bottle earlier so that these issues didn’t complicate things.

* We should’ve used Miralax first – Charlie’s constipation is still an issue now and then. We should’ve used Miralax before starting potty training, in addition to the dietary changes we started.

What we did right:

* Books like Yummy Yucky and Prince of the Potty were huge factors in getting Charlie on board.  Because we were potty training at 2 1/2 years of age, it was a lot easier to get him mentally excited about the process.
* Devoting a weekend to the potty training was a great way to get things started. Our daycare did a fantastic job of continuing the training through the week too.  Good communication with the daycare about how things are going was really important to avoid backsliding.
* Buying boxer briefs that Charlie loved was also huge. It helped that they were easy to take on and off. Tighty-whities and/or pantie style underwear are harder to take on and off.
* Making sure that Charlie sits down at very regular intervals was really helpful too. We started off sitting him down every 15 minutes or so, but now he sits down every hour or two.
* Whenever we’re about to leave the house — or whenever we come back in — we always make sure to sit him down. That’s very helpful.
* Mrs. Cowgirl had a great tip: if your LO doesn’t want to sit on the potty, tell them to just sit down until you can count together to 10!
* Another tip: if your toddler won’t stay on the potty long enough to go poop, you can sit them down and read them a book. I would read Charlie “Prince of the Potty” while he sat on the potty, and that was enough time for him to go number two.
* We used a standalone little potty for Charlie’s training instead of the seat that goes over the toilet, which gave him great visual feedback on whether or not he was able to pee or poop.
* We would make a big deal out of emptying the pee from the potty together.  Then we would let Charlie flush the toilet.  He loves to flush the toilet, so it turned training into a real life video game for him!

What’s next

* We still have to conquer Charlie’s constipation before we can say for sure that he’s comfortable pooping on the potty. It’s tough because right now, he can poop but only if we’re there and encouraging him. I’d like to get him to the point where he can poop by himself. He’s done it before, but it’s a lot harder when he is backed up.

* Charlie also needs to cut out his night bottle, so that he stay dry through the night. What’s amazing though is that even with the night bottle, if he pees before bedtime and then wakes up early to pee, then he will have a dry diaper in the morning. He now truly prefers to pee in the potty over in his diaper at this point!  Still though, it’s not gonna be easy to cut out that night bottle.

* Charlie prefers his own standalone “little potty” over the “big potty trainer” that sits over the toilet. It’d be great if he could use the “big potty” though, so we could put the little potty away.

* We also need to get Charlie comfortable using his portable potty, so he can potty while we’re on the go.

That’s how things are going a week-and-a-half into potty training! We’ll continue to work on this, but we’re really excited by how well things are going so far.

Do you have any tips for potty training your toddler?