Potty Learning: Cole's Success Story

I'm no longer crazy about the word "train" as it implies I trained Cole to use the toilet like a drill sergeant or something, when in actuality, I pushed him to learn to listen to his body. To train someone means to me that I did most of the work, when in actuality, a lot of work fell on Cole as well. So we'll call this "potty learning" (not a term I made up).

Dear readers, I am so proud of him with all of the strides he has made to becoming completely diaper free. Here's his success story.

It was a Friday in late April. I had just removed Cole's poopy diaper and cleaned him with wipes. Bevin was in the bouncy seat in his room. I needed to wash my hands. But I couldn't leave Bevin alone with Cole while I ran to the bathroom to thoroughly clean my hands. What was I to do? Pick her up with my possibly dirty hands? Leave her alone with her big brother? I chose the former. And as I was doing it I said to myself, Never will I be in this situation again. Because he is going to learn. I said out loud to him - "You're going diaper free from now on."

Of course, he wasn't thrilled. But when I offered him the incentives, he readily agreed to try it out.

Obviously, this wasn't our first go at it. We had been attempting to help him learn how to use the toilet since he started to express interest before he was even 18 months old. But nothing had ever stuck. There was even a season that went by where he absolutely refused to step foot in the bathroom except for baths. But lately, we had both become exasperated at changing his diapers and that of a newborn's. The two were in stark contrast with each other and it became evident that changes needed to be made. But who has the energy for that with a newborn in the house? So I gave it time. I said to myself, he'll use the toilet when he's ready. But the problem was that his body and mind was ready, but his little heart just didn't want to it. He wasn't into it. He'd rather busily play and poop or pee in his diaper instead of dropping everything to go to the bathroom and do his business.

When my friend and his wife decided to push their almost 2-year-old to learn the ins and outs of using the potty before their second child came (she's due to arrive sometime soon!), I decided to copy the method she was using. That Friday afternoon, I made up a chart similar to hers and gave Cole slightly different incentives. For each time he pooped, he got to write a check on the chart. He got a yogurt covered pretzel for every checkmark (I tried to make it every 3 checkmarks, but that was not good enough!) and for every 3 stickers (a sticker for each time he peed) I gave him rice crackers with sunbutter on them.  I did this mostly on the fly, although I had given it a little thought in the days prior.  I didn't let him wear pants for three days, unless we went out, but he continued to wear diapers at night.
Despite one poop accident and multiple pee accidents in the next month, he continued to thrive and eventually forgot about all incentives (although the yogurt covered pretzels stuck around for a while). He was wearing underwear within a week. We purchased an on-the-go potty with disposable liners for pooping and peeing if we're out and there is no bathroom or port-a-potty, but he was and still is mostly able to hold it, so we've only used it a handful of times in the past 3 months.

Then, a few weeks ago, the most startling thing happened. He told me he didn't want to wear a diaper to bed.  I was surprised and a little nervous, but I kept my cool and just ran with it. I told him to wake us up if he needed to go and we'd help him use his Baby Bjorn Potty in his room. He's had a few big accidents where he's soaked his sheets and blankets, a number of little ones, and he wakes up sometimes in the middle of the night crying because he has to go, but there are also lots of nights when he's dry (please Internet don't strike me down) and sleeps straight through. We gave away some of his diapers and all of his pull-ups and kept one unopened sleeve for Bevin when she gets older, since the brand we buy for him ain't cheap!

I remember when I put all of the loose diapers and pull-ups in a bag and Keith said to me, "Wait, maybe we should keep those, or bring them camping." To which I said, "Dude, there's no going back."

Here's what I love and am so proud of this kid for:
He took the ball and went with it. He ran around the house half naked for four days (our guests didn't mind and we got some funny pictures- none of which I am able to put on here sadly enough). But more than that, he learned to listen to his body. We talked to him about the difference between feeling like you have to go and actually going. We talked to him about how to detect potential bowel movements. We talked to him about staying on the toilet until he was done with his business. We talked to him about pulling his own pants down and back up and the finer points of sitting versus standing. He learned from everything we addressed and from his own experiences. He has come so far that he actually prefers to go by himself, and even tries to wipe himself. And he looks so darn cute in pants, shorts and swimshorts without diapers!

My little big boy...

Moments before he tinkled, he held himself and denied wholeheartedly, "I don't have to pee!!!" It's not a perfect system, folks, but he's getting there! (and yes, we let him choose his own clothes!)

Waiting to use the toilet at his new pre-school's open house

The weekend he started to use the toilet, we also decided it would be awesome if we could go on a hike. Fortunately, we had this portable Cars potty (after it cracked, that's when we bought the Potette)