Potty Training - A Year Later

Potty training did not go anything like I thought it would (you can read about it here and here).  Ideally we were going to start potty training around Lynden's second birthday but with him commuting between the Okanagan and the Coast we felt it would be too much stress for him so we waited.

On March 19, 2011 we started potty training.  We decided to go with a bare bum approach for the first 3 days.  Danny was instrumental those first days as I was breastfeeding Alyssa every 2.5-3 hours, which made it difficult to clean up the many accidents. 

The first day was something else.  Lynden decided to just pee everywhere and it was very hard to not get mad at him.  We had his potty in the livingroom with us and every time he peed anywhere but the potty we would take him and sit him on the potty, trying to explain we go pee on the potty. 

Around 7 that night Lynden, still bare bummed, was playing when he got up, walked to the potty, sat down, and went pee.  We were thrilled, as was he.


The next 2 days Lynden was upgraded to pants, no diaper or underwear, and for the most part was fairly successful going pee on the potty. 

Getting him to go poo on the potty was something else, he would avoid it at all costs.  Thankfully we only lost a few pair of underwear before he gave in and started going poo on the potty. 

Lynden talking to Aunty
after having a big accident
while at the park

Over the next few months we had ups and downs, a lot of them.  We'd go a few weeks with no accidents and then a few weeks where we'd have daily accidents, multiple accidents.  It was beyond frustrating because we knew he could do it, he just chose not to. 

We did sticker charts, big rewards, chocolate treats, praise, singing, dancing, all of it.     

In the fall we hit our ropes end.  Lynden decided to stop using the potty and started peeing his pants on a regular basis.  We know it was attention seeking and laziness as he knew how to use a potty, again he was choosing not to. 

We reminded him that big boys use the potty and babies pee in themselves and if he was going to choose to be a baby we would treat him like one.  We stuck him back in a diaper.  Lynden was not happy about that and promised he wouldn't pee his pants anymore. 

I feel bad that we resorted to putting him back into a diaper, but we were at our wits end.  It had been 7 months with no end in sight to the accidents. 

It's been almost 6 months since then and we've had very few accidents.   He's excellent about telling us he needs to go pee and has started to go to the bathroom by himself during the day.  He tells us he needs to go pee and goes and does it. 

It's a great thing for us to see him be able to go on his own and he's quite thrilled to be able to be independent. 

Hopefully he'll get excited about the idea of learning to stand and pee soon, at the moment he tells us he's not big enough yet. 

I am proud of Lynden and all the progress he's made in the last year; going from learning when he needs to go to being able to go all by himself. 

It gives me hope knowing we can potty train.  Especially since we're talking about introducing Alyssa to the potty soon.  Maybe by this time next year we can have 2 fully potty trained kids!!

How was potty training for you?

I'm linking up with Mommy Talk Tuesday




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