If you look on Pinterest you’ll find all these greatest tips on how to potty train your kid in one day, two days, 30 minutes, etc. I’m here to tell you that every child is different, what may work for one in 30 minutes may not work for your neighbor. One thing is for sure, that by the end of day 4 of being persistent, not allowing diapers, and really watching cues we had this potty thing down.
Preparing for Day One:
Before I started I had great support from my cousin who had just potty trained her little girl. She told me I had to read Oh Crap Potty Training, I know it sounds silly to read a book on Potty Training–but I promise you it helps. I can say that I followed it as closely as possible, but I did do some things different–just because we didn’t actually have an entire free week to work with.
I had actually decided back in early summer that the weekend we got back from our last big vacation would be the weekend that we would start potty training. It wasn’t until I read the book that I was dead set on it. Pick a weekend. If you don’t something will come up every weekend that makes you start the next weekend. Unfortunately, we totally missed Choo Choo Soul at Sea World–but hey instead we are out of diapers and that’s a win in my book. Oh, and try not to pick your husbands birthday weekend.
Get a potty seat ready, we have the one that goes on the big toilet and a child sized one. The child sized was perfect in the first few days–I will get to that in day one.
I pulled out our favorite potty time books, and read those the night before and talked about how tomorrow we would not wear diapers anymore only big boy pants. The book talks a lotabout not asking them “is that ok?” because they have no idea what ok is–just go with it and tell them this is what we are going to do.
Going into potty training do not tell anyone what you are going to attempt. People will say all kinds of things, and entering something that is as tough as potty training you don’t need that kind of negativity. Wait til it’s all said and done and announce to the world what you accomplished.
Day One:
From the time I saw my sons little head lift up in bed on Done with Diapers day, I prayed. I prayed a ton ya’ll. Just pray. I could stop there, because really that’s all that you need. I prayed all the way up the stairs to get him, when I finally announced we are done with diapers! He cheered–he had no idea what that truly meant.
Day one is all about being naked–no pants, undies, nothing. Just warn whoever is coming over that day, it could be a little awkward if your sister comes over and a naked child is running out the house. In the book it says stay home for a week, unfortunately we have stuff going on Tuesday-Thursday so that wasn’t possible. I decided that we would make this a 4 day potty training–kinda like the accelerated program.
Show your child the potty, and literally watch their every move. Just leave your phone in your room because you will not need it today. You will be so busy watching your child to catch any drop they make so they understand that potty goes in the toilet. Bennett literally held his pee for almost 4 hours. He finally unleashed when I walked in the other room, and I’m telling you he let it go everywhere! I was so disappointed and figured it was over from there.
Nap time rolled around and my child had gone pee once that day–and that was all over the floor. I put him in a pull-up as I’m not nap or night training yet. He woke up dry as he usually does.
Oh you know in walks my husband–“Bennett did you go potty today?” Yeah! Runs sits on the potty and goes potty. Umm-give up right there if that happens to you. Kidding. But really. What I really think made him go though was the reward that we ended up offering. In the book it talks about only positive reinforcement. I didn’t see that happening with Bennett. We did one MM and he was perfectly happy with that.
Night time he is still a really heavy wetter but he did go pee one more time before bed, and again right before his bath. I was extremely proud of him. Also extremely tired.
Day Two:
Day two was a Saturday and my husband had plans, I literally called him begging him to come home and make my son pee again. He did. I figured it was over for me and I would never be able to potty train my child. I do think this potty training experience made my son and husband so much closer though! He is now a total daddy’s boy, and used to love me. HA!
We continued on the naked path, and stayed at home. I watched his every move and I don’t think I ever got him to pee for me. He was doing great though and peed when we saw that he needed to go. This is huge, the next day would be commando. We did pullups at nap and night time.
Also, today he pooped. Huge accomplishment. I think my husband wishes he would have saved it. We didn’t. We were used to him pooping 3 times a day so an every other day is kinda nice.
Day Three:
We went commando (shorts no undies). It made it a little more difficult for me to see if he was going to pee, but he actually would say uh oh pee pee. We would run him to the potty chair when we heard him say that. He was a little resistant to the fact, but not terrible.
That night we had my mom come over and babysit so that we could go to dinner for my husband’s birthday (remember it fell on the weekend I decided to potty train). He told my mom when he had to go pee. One thing he didn’t like was when we made him sit on the potty. That was difficult, because I knew he had to go. When we got home she had given him a bath and put him in his pull-up and he actually told me he was starting to go pee when he had it on. That was a proud moment.
I can’t wait to share with you Days 4-6. What did you do for potty training? Anything similar to what we did?
