Potty Training

It's been way too long and the pictures on this blog are tragically outdated, but I have 20 minutes between meetings and I figured I'd give everyone a potty training update. WARNING: This post will discuss pee and poop. Enter at your own risk.

Ryan had been asking for "underwears" for a while now since his friends at daycare, Lucy and Sidney, have been wearing them for a while. We decided to wait until after Justin's mom's visit so as not to make her deal with accidents (you're welcome Gi-Gi!) Last Saturday, we decided it was time and put Ryan in underwear. We explained the potty to him, showed him all his new underwear, and watched the Potty Power DVD a couple of times. We had him in underwear only, no shirt or pants, and took him to the potty every 30 minutes. For nap and nightime, we put him back in a diaper. Results? Well the good news is that more went into the potty than didn't. The bad news is that we went through 9 pairs of underwears and a whole lot of mine and Justin's patience. We locked ourselves in the house for 2 days in potty purgatory, not leaving for anything. It was stressful and annoying, but by Monday morning, Ryan had started to get it. The one thing he wasn't getting though was poop. Each day he peed in the potty, but waited until naptime or nighttime to poop in the diaper.

On Monday we happily sent him to daycare with 8 pairs of underwears, several changes of clothing, and a hearty "good luck!" He did great, with only 2 accidents.

On Tuesday, we had a major breakthrough. Huge poop in the potty! I jumped up and screamed and completely startled Ryan, but we celebrated with lots of hugs (and a little chocolate).

On Wednesday and Thursday we had only 1 accident a day, and Ryan has started going 1.5 to 2 hours between potty breaks.


Over the weekend we did great, no accidents, but he did wait until naptime or nighttime to poop in his diaper. Not a big thing we figured, he'll get it again.

On Monday Ryan came down with a cold and that's when all hell broke loose. He's consistently doing well at daycare, going every hour on command and having few accidents. When he's home it's a different story. He wants to wear his underwear, but he doesn't want to go to the potty, so he holds it for 2 hours and even though we get him to sit for a minute every once in a while, he won't go. He'll now wait to pee on the floor instead. I did some research and this appears to be a willful toddler thing probably in rebellion of my constant reminding and hovering. I mean, I guess it would be a lot of pressure to have someone ask you every 5 minutes if you have to go and then watch while you're going. So we're going to try to back off and see if we can get him back to his week 1 greatness. And if not, that's ok too, we'll put the diaper back on for a couple of weeks and try again.

So all in all, we appear to be experiencing the roller coaster ride that is potty training. But as my co-worker reminded me, he won't go to college wearing diaper. Probably.