"Mommy WOW - I'm a big kid now"

Remember that song from a pull-ups commercial way back when??

Anyhoo, we began this journey called potty training on January 8.  For those of you who don't care about the "how", I'll just jump right in and say Brady is officially potty trained and out of diapers!  He still wears pull-ups and night, but today he woke up completely dry which is a good sign that he is ready to ditch the pull-ups too.

We used the 3-day potty training method, although we were only able to devote 2 days to it.  The idea of this method is that for 3 days, you are 100% completely devoted to your toddler in training.  You make him a part of packing up all of the diapers, changing table, wipes and setting up the potty, putting underwear in the drawer and everything else that you do to get started.  That way he understands that he is going to be wearing underwear now and not diapers.  

You explain to them that they have to keep their underwear dry, so when they have to go potty, let an adult know so they can take them to the bathroom.  The author of the method suggests not asking them if they have to go potty, instead keep reminding them to let you know when they have to go.  It makes them the instigator of having to go potty, not you.

Then you just put them in their underwear and watch them, and I mean REALLY WATCH their every move.  When they start to have an accident, you rush them to the potty!  You have to catch them in the act, that is why you have to watch so closely.  The idea is that they begin associating peeing/pooping with rushing to the potty.

It's actually a lot harder to be 100% attentive to child for 3 days (or 2 in our case) than you might think.  I think that Lance and I are pretty good parents and we give both of our kids lots of attention and love, but this really opened my eyes as to how often you have to trust that your child will be OK without you starring down their every move.  

It definitely takes two people, especially if you have a curious 10 month old crawling around too.  One person has to be the "watcher" and the other person can take care of the other child, prepare meals, etc.  

The "watcher" is not allowed to do anything but be 100% devoted to the potty trainee.  You can't go look in the refrigerator, make a glass of water, put a movie in the DVD player, fix lunch, do anything for your other children or pretty much anything else.  You have to get up before everyone else to get a shower and get dressed for the day.  You go to the bathroom when your child goes to the bathroom.  And forget about (GASP) facebooking or blogging.  

Aside from that, you do the normal stuff, potty charts, stickers, m&m's, money, etc.  Anything to reward an attempt at the potty.  One suggestion my pediatrician had was to be sure his feet can touch the floor when sitting on the potty.  He said its hard to contract the muscles that need to be contracted when going potty if your feet aren't on the floor.  This was good advice to me because for a long time I didn't know if I should get a little potty, or just one of those kids seats that fit over the big seat on an adult potty.

Brady's Potty Charts with his Stickers

By the time the 2 days were over, he was down to having just 1 accident a day.  His daycare is really great about potty training too, so they really helped out that first week.  By the end of the week, he was fully potty trained!

He does still have accidents every now and then, but he is getting better and the accidents are becoming few and far between.  If any of you moms out there are going to do potty training soon, my one suggestion would be not to try to do underwear at night at first.  

The author of the 3 day method suggests underwear at night right off the bat.  She says that they are capable of holding it all night long and that using pull-ups or diapers at night is confusing to the potty trainee.  We did it for about a week and decided that Brady waking up in the middle of the night because his clothes and bed are soaked was not good for anyone.  We were going through 2-3 sets of sheets/sheet savers EVERY NIGHT.  Not to mention having to get Brady back to sleep in the middle of the night.

I'll leave you with a replay of this morning's potty session.

Brady: I need to go potty

Me: OK, let's go

Brady: Sits on the potty, does #1 and #2, stands up, looks in the potty and says "Holy Crap!"

Me: What did you say?!?!?!

Brady: Holy Crap!

Me: Where did you learn to say that

Brady: No answer

So I go over to look in the potty for myself...

Me: Holy Crap!

Me: DOH!

Me: Brady, don't say that, those are ugly words, mommy won't say them either!

Who knew that I frequently say holy crap???  Not me, I was completely dumbfounded.  I guess I need to start paying a lot closer attention to what I say.