Potty Training Part 1: Planning

So I have been thinking about potty training Liam for awhile now but everyone says, boys always potty train older then girls and are much more difficult to do. But he has been telling me sometimes when he is poopy and to change his diaper when it is full and is bothering him. So online I went. I did about 3 days of research and I had a plan. My main resource was an amazing site call Potty Whiz. It gave me tips on common problems and how to get started. So I made a whole bunch of notes and decided how we were going to go about this.

Liam is so smart, he gets things and we bribe him all the time to get him to do things like hug us, yeah I know, great parenting but it shows that that is a method that works for him. He also seems to hate being wet, he has dumped water down the front of his shirt and then cries at me, wet wet until I change his outfit so he doesn't enjoy that either which is good. So he seems ready.

I went and picked up a training toilet seat, because we figured might as well have him start in the bathroom and not have to add that step in. We are going to have him go cold turkey. I have been telling him for days that he isn't going to have to wear diapers anymore and he is going to get to wear underwear like mommy and daddy to try and get him excited about it. He has picked out his own underwear and what candy he will get for his reward. He has sat on his toilet seat very happily and we have tried showing him all the steps that go into using the bathroom like a big boy. So I have done everything I can to make this a fun, exciting process for him.

So we are doing 3 days of intensive potty training in hopes it will kick start it so that when he goes to daycare it is not a horrible experiance for them to have him having accidents everywhere. We are starting on Valentine's Day with just hubby because I work in the morning and then we will work together with him on Sunday and then I will finish with Monday and hopefully he will have a good idea of what to do by the time I go back to work on Tuesday. We won't really be leaving the house at all, it will be us, Liam in a shirt and underwear and lots of trips to the bathroom. I made a list of how we are doing everything and I have printed it out, laminated it and hung it on the wall in the bathroom so that we can easily see it and know what to do in case we forget or get flustered. I also have another page that I will be printing that has what we are doing for rewards and accidents.

Potty Whiz Weekend

(Saturday-Monday)

1. When he wakes up, get all excited and change him into his new underwear
2. Let him run around in a shirt and underwear
3. Keep him within arms reach at all times
4. When he tells you he needs to go, or starts going, immediately take him to the half bath.
5. Have him pull his underwear down, try to not help him too much
6. Let him climb up on the toilet himself
7. Let him play on his iPad with the Potty Time game while sitting on the toilet
8. Sit in the bathroom with him until he goes
9. When he goes be very excited and happy
10. Help him wipe if needed
11. Let him get off the toilet himself and pull up his own underwear
12. Give him his reward and remind him that if he needs to go again to tell us

• Don't prompt him, let him tell us if he has to go
• Do prompt him before naps or leaving the house
• Use cloth training pants for naps and bedtime and call them night underwear
• Tell him to tell us if he needs to go potty at night and we will come get him
• Try not to talk negatively about poop (calling it yucky or anything)
• Dont let him see males pee standing up

Rewards

• Give him 3 pieces of candy whenever he goes at all in the toilet
• On the 2nd day, add in dry checks too (candy for staying dry for an hour etc.)
• If needed use a special reward for telling us if he needs to go or for pooping
• 
   

Accidents

• Be postive still
• Clean him up
• If pooped, have him help take it to the toilet and flush it, while explaining that is where poop goes, not in his underwear (nicely)
• Explain to him that if he doesn't want to be wet, he has to tell us and go in the toilet
• If you manage to get him on the toilet before he is done going during an accident, it no longer counts as an accident and gets rewarded as normal

 

Once the weekend is over I plan on making printout for the babysitters too so that they can use the same plan that we are using. Wish us luck that he gets it and that we can be done changing diapers for the time being. I will do another update next week to say how it is going.