Brian has only had two and a half accidents today! The half happened very close to bath time. I think he was just tired and couldn't hold it in.
Yesterday was not so easy. We spent most of the morning cleaning up pee every time we turned around. We lost count of how many accidents and how many pairs of underwear we went through. I know we did two loads of laundry...not all from accidents, but quite a bit from accidents. The underwear is small, but the copious amounts of towels used to clean were not.
I spent the early part of the morning covering the couch in plastic (which by the way Brian found very entertaining), getting the bathroom all set up (potty seat on top of big potty, stool ready for hand washing). Brian and I had also made a trip to the Evil Empire the day before to buy lots of salty snacks, sugary drinks and craft supplies! The salty snacks were supposed to make him thirsty and the sugary drinks were supposed to make him drink a lot because he wouldn't be able to quench his thirst. The craft supplies were just because he and I have been having so much fun making crafty things lately and I figured since we were going to be stuck here all weekend, we may as well have something fun to do!
Back to Day 1 though...there were a couple of low points. One was when I removed Brian from the toilet after a long time of sitting and he promptly turned around and peed right on Shawn's leg. Shawn was not happy. His leg got peed on twice yesterday. Like with aim involved.
But by late afternoon we hit a breaking point and has several successes. We lost count of how many, which we considered to be a good thing. We even got a 1/2 success when it came to going poo on the potty! He started to go and I ran him into the bathroom so he could finish on the toilet. The Buzz Light Year underwear stayed dry for a long, long time after the poo success and many candy rewards were consumed.
We found that if we had something in the bathroom to keep him occupied, it helped. The stickers I bought from Walmart helped tremendously! We also read lots of books and did his magnetic puzzle countless times.
However, around dinner time, Mr. Brian decided he was done. D.O.N.E. He just was not himself. He refused to eat (pizza!) and would have NOTHING to do with sitting on the potty. So we made the decision to quit for the day. We put him in a diaper and let him play for an hour before bedtime with no mention of the potty. He returned to his normal, happy self.
He and Shawn played trains and even made a super Cranky the Crane! It was fun to sit and watch them playing together.
That's when I realized that even if potty training wasn't successful, we learned a HUGE lesson this weekend. We learned how important it is to take the time to play with our kid(s), not just for a few minutes here and there, but for a long amount of time when possible. Maybe not even a whole day, but several hours of just being together as a family doing what the kid(s) want to do is really important. This is something I hope we will not soon forget!
At bath time Brian stood to pee in the tub and I grabbed him and put him on the toilet for good measure. After Shawn got him to sleep, we talked and decided to see how Day 2 went and just go with our instincts. I'm pretty sure we both went to bed thinking that the next day would be a fail.
We were wrong! We woke up and Brian stayed dry for almost two hours. Then he had his first accident. We were disappointed, but kept our game faces on and kept offering him water. He drank a lot of water. We also let him watch of his "Curious George" videos. This ended up being a great tool because each episode is a little less than 20 minutes long. So, every time an episode ended, we took him to the potty. He probably peed on the potty 5 times if not more before noon!
Throughout the day he kept drinking water and kept having successes. We even managed to spread out the trips to longer than 20 minutes apart. He got to the point that there was no waiting involved. As soon as he sat on the potty, he peed! We even had another poo success (with all of it making it in the potty this time)! He did pee on me a little en route, but once he was finished going poo, he had to pee a little more and took control by pushing his little part down so he wouldn't get me wet again!
The train play has continued into today. We also watched UK earn a spot in the final four. Go CATS!! Unfortunately Daddy can be a train hog...ha ha ha!!
As I said above Brian had two and a half accidents today, but since we can't count the times he went on the potty, I would say they far outweigh the accidents! He even brought me new underwear to put on him late in the evening (after a successful trip to the potty). I guess he was bored with the other pair! After the half accident, we tried to have him sit on the potty and finish, but he was just too worn out. It has to be taxing to learn such an important skill in such a short amount of time. We started bath time and once again I grabbed him because he was getting ready to pee in the tub. This time, he did not pee at all until he was on the potty! He's doing such a great job!
I have decided to take tomorrow off to give it one more day at home. The only trip out we will have to take is to pick up Max, which should take about 10 minutes. Hopefully we will continue with our success sans Daddy. I sure will miss the help!
We are so, so proud of Brian for his big accomplishment! This is a kid who had never even gone to the bathroom on the potty before last Monday. And really before that he was afraid to even sit on the potty. He has worked so hard! We are not by any means completely there yet, but if he continues to work hard and his learning curve continues to be what it has been for the past two days, we are well on our way to a diaper free house. (At least during the day and at least until JULY!)
1 comment:
Way to go Brian!
Post a Comment