So commences Operation potty-train Noah and operation No More Binky. Both of these pre-emptive strikes are wearing on me just a little and have caused me a great deal of stress and guilt. First off, Noah absolutely must be COMPLETLY potty-trained by the first day of school in late-August. If he isn’t then he can’t start school and we will then be paying tuition for him not to be going to school. That gives me just over 4 months to get him there.
We have started and have been working on it for a long time. So, to help the process along, I decided to buy him some really cool stuff to give him as prizes for making it a full day without peeing in his diaper. I plan to make a sticker chart so that he can earn some of the things that I bought him. So you are wondering exactly where this mistake is? Well he was with me when I went shopping for his potty-prizes. So, it’s been a battle because he doesn’t understand why he can’t have all of the things right now. This is because he is spoiled and he has always gotten the things that I have bought him right away, etc. So, this hasn’t been necessarily working in my favor. I have learned another valuable lesson.
In terms of potty-training, I have decided that while at home the whole wearing only underwear really helps–while he did pee a little bit twice on the floor yesterday–he was able to stop the pee and come and tell us that he had to potty. He is beginning to put the two things together. It is really easy to not think about it if you don’t have to. So, I will be sticking with this tactic at home for the next few weeks–I totally need to invest in more big boy underwear for him. But another issue is that I have been putting too much pressure on him to poop on the potty (I know exciting talk) that he hasn’t gone in a nearly a week. The poor kids stomach must hurt so bad. Lesson 2–pressure is bad.
On a brighter note–we are surviving without the binky and he fell asleep last night in my arms at 9:30–earliest night all week. I’ll begin putting him to bed before he is asleep as soon as he adjusts.
So, bring on the potty-training tips. Just know my kid isn’t motivated by food or a lot of things for that matter.
Embracing Imperfection 
Well, as you know I’ve been battling the potty training thing for months now. I did finally come to the realization, like you, that at home it has to be underwear only. When we go out I started leaving the underwear on w/a pullup over it…this way he still feels the underwear not the very diaper like pull-up. We are progressing which is good news and he is staying dryer & dryer for longer periods of time which is a relief because peeing every 15 minutes is not practical. Alijah does like to dunk cheerios when peeing (he has always stood up to the big toilet…never did the sit down think on the little potty). Sounds gross, but we make a big deal of looking at the poopie in the toilet and saying “bye-bye poopie”…and he’s watched me take care of the very gross job of dumping the poopie from his underwear into the toilet & rinsing them out, so one day when he had an accident I found him doing just that on his own…very messy but I was proud of him too. He’s a chocoholic, and his favorites are Yorkshire mints, so he gets one BIG circle chocolate (as he calls them) when he poops in the toilet & one chocolate chip for every pee. He poops at least once a day so I’ve found that if we’re halfway through the day and he hasn’t gone yet, I can have him sit and try and he will usually go…we celebrate every splash we hear…again gross, but I will stoop to any level of potty humor to get this boy trained!
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Aw the dreaded potty training. I don’t know that I have any words of wisdom for you- as we’re in the same process with our daughter but almost there! She was holding in her poop too because I also was pressuring her but I just left it for a while and she decided to do it on her own… she just started talking ALOT about everyone that she knew that went poop on the potty and eventually decided that she too was going to do it and she’s taken it from there. My daughter is a few months older than your son and we just started preschool last week and she did pretty well. I hope that you have great potty success in the coming months. I also hope that potty training the second time around is alot easier than this time! 🙂
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The less pressure, the better. Kids physiologically (and psychologically!) will do it when they’re ready.
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Peer pressure works for us–she’s been using the potty since 18 months (on her own, and definitely not all the time), but we hit a plateau a few months ago. I just sucked it up and sent her to school in underwear and many, many pairs of extra pants. She came home in the same pants and underwear! I couldn’t believe it. They promoted her to the “big kid” room for her age–where the kids are all potty trained or close to it. She knows that if she doesn’t use the potty, she has to go back to Ms. Karen’s room–and she really digs Ms. Lorena’s room. We’re still not 100% by any means, but other kids have been the result of our biggest leap forward! She also gets a small piece of candy (a tic tac or a piece of candy corn leftover from Halloween) or a sticker if she initiates going potty at home or when we’re out–we’re trying to get her to think about it on her own instead of having to remind her every 30 minutes. She LOVES going potty in public restrooms, which is weird, but whatever. I’ll take it 🙂
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