Thursday, September 2, 2010

Poop Goes in the Potty - Take 4

Sunday - No tee-tee accidents, but some poop went in the underwear.

Monday - We went to meet Sam's teacher at Mother's Day Out. He hadn't pooped when we left and I knew he needed to go. He had a couple tee-tee accidents while we were there which I think were because he was holding poop coupled with the fact that we were in a whole new environment and meeting new people. They still weren't bad though...again, a little bit came out and he caught himself. That afternoon, we had a poop battle. He pooped in his underwear 3 times within about 20 minutes. I was watching him very closely and taking him in the bathroom but he just wouldn't sit there and finish. There wasn't a whole lot I could do. I was beyond discouraged.

Tuesday - He had orientation at MDO in the morning and didn't have any accidents. I was relieved because I was totally expecting some kind of accident. Later,I was putting him down for his nap and he said he needed to go poop so he could get a car. Of course, so he could get a car ;). Pretty normal behavior...anything to delay going to bed, right? So I told him to run on in there while I finished putting away some of his clothes. I checked on him and he said, "would you please leave?" That was the first clue that he might actually poop in the potty on his own. You know what? He did. I was psyched! This time was totally different too. He was controlling things as opposed to him just sitting there and waiting for the poop to come out.
I don't know if he saw a kid do it at MDO or what but I guess something clicked. And hallelujah for the clicking!

Wednesday & Thursday - Things appear to be going really well. There is still an occasional, very small tee-tee accident but we haven't had any more poop in the underwear. Hallelujah!

I'm trying to set myself up not to be disappointed if we have a little regression but it's hard to imagine with how well he's doing now.

Boil it down to this:
-We waited a long time, past when most of my friends were potty training. This was because I did not want to put him in underwear, then go back to diapers, then go back to underwear, or use Pull-ups, etc. etc.
-We did it pretty hard core for about a week then eased off just a tad. I think in the first 3 days or so, we said, "Make sure you remind us when you need to go to the potty," at least 100 times. -Seriously.
-We had some pretty traumatic (more for me and Bob than Sam) moments when I completely understood why someone would go back to diapers.
-Sam did awesome with tee-teeing in the potty after about 2 days.
-I guess a light went off (poop-wise) 10 days after we put him in underwear.
-He's in Pull-ups at night now, which we refer to as "nighttime underwear." That's because we were having him tee-tee twice before bed, getting him up when we went to bed AND getting him up pretty early in the morning. With that method, he was staying dry but who wants to do that on a regular basis?!
-So we have him go twice before bed, put on nighttime underwear and sometimes he's dry in the morning (when Bob leaves around 6:30), sometimes not. That will come with time.

Do you have any potty-training tips you want to share? Any hilarious stories? Horror stories?

6 comments:

Katie said...

No tips from me, but I sure am impressed!!

Camille Platt said...

wow good for you. how old is he? i've had friends with boys struggle a lot before the 3-yr mark and end up going back to diapers, so go you for sticking with it.

Jess the Mess said...

Potty training boys is just plain hard but you're smart for waiting. I started at 18 months with Landen because I was obsessed with milestones. It was a horror-show and lasted for like a year. I think it created unnecessary drama and could have been avoided if I had just waited....lesson learned. Anyhow, stick with it, in about 3 weeks, he'll have it down and you'll look back and think, "That was easy".

Laura said...

You're pretty much my hero for sticking that out. I'm very impressed.

Lauren said...

Good for you guys! We're currently potty training with Miss Priss. And she is NOT getting the poop part. And we're naked potty training. And girls squat to play.

Can I leave it at that? LOL.

Angela V said...

your "that's a big ol poop" reminds me of zach. every time he poopies in the potty, we get the "moooooommmmmmmy, daaaaaadddddddddy, come look at my poopy!" so we have to go in and check it out.

we also did the car reward. it worked great, then he got spoiled with cars and expected them all the time after we ran out. oops! so we had to sit down with him and explain that he was a big boy now and didn't need "presents" and he was pretty accepting of that. i think being told he was a big boy like daddy was the biggest reward for him! :)