Potty Training Boot Camp - In the Thick of It

On Monday I posted about how it was high time for Little Dude to get past the diaper stage and onto the big boy stage of his life. I also posted that I was going to start a potty training boot camp as of Thursday (today).

Well. . . I decided that there was no real good reason to wait for Thursday, so I started on Tuesday instead.

So far the results are mixed, but I am hopefully.

- Tuesday -

On Tuesday I woke him up at 9am and immediately took off his diaper. I had the living room rug covered with an old blanket and comforter to keep accidents from happening directly on it. This is what it looked like before I got Little Dude up:

He got to go free for the first half of the day without any bottoms on at all. He usually wakes up dry, but this time when I took off his diaper, it was filled. I figured this meant that he had just gone recently. I fed him breakfast which included a cup of milk, and proceeded to be liberal with the water thereafter. I asked him to sit on the potty and go pee pee several times. He sat on it each time, but never actually did anything in it. This was very frustrating, especially after a few hours, since it was obvious that he was holding it in. I figured that at least that meant that he knew how to hold it, I just needed to out-stubborn my 2 year old.

Eventually 1pm rolled around and I had to put him down for a nap. I did put a diaper on him then because I don't expect him to be sleep trained necessarily. He napped a good 3 1/2 hour nap and it was almost 5pm when he got up. He of course had filled that diaper too. I took it off of him and decided to put him in his big boy underwear this time around. I picked out a pair with Disney's Cars characters on them since he loves those. I told him not to pee pee on the cars or I would have to take them away. He repeated back several times, "no pee pee on cars, use potty!"

Around 7pm, he came running over to me yelling that he was all wet. He had his first accident during potty training boot camp. He had of course had the accident in his sister's room on her rug; One of the only ones not protected. I quickly had him sit on the potty, but he was done. I was glad he had finally had an accident though since that is a great way to learn what not to do.

We replaced the cars underwear with Nemo underwear and I repeated to him that he couldn't pee pee on Nemo. A couple more hours rolled by and it was bed time. I put a diaper on him to go to bed in and that was it for day 1.

- Wednesday -

Wednesday morning I went to the gym and then had a chiropractor appointment. Little Dude got to wear a diaper for all of that. This is very much not ideal since the point of potty training boot camp is to go cold turkey off of diapers until they figure it out. I am trying very hard to stick to my workout schedule though and I needed my chiro appointment, so the diaper was necessary. We were out from about 8:30am to almost noon. By the time we got home, I was really tired so I quickly fed him lunch and set him down for a nap. He woke up around 3pm and that is when potty training boot camp began again.

It took a few hours again, but I just kept pushing the water and a couple of popsicles to keep his bladder working. He was playing in his room when at one point he ran into the room yelling potty. He ran over to it, pulled down his Nemo underwear and sat on the potty. Alas, It was alas too. He had already done his business in the underwear, but he had at least tried to get to the potty this time.

Another couple of hours later, he was playing in the living room when he all the sudden rushed over to the potty. He once again was yelling "potty". He struggled with his underwear, and in his haste, he sat down on the potty with them still on. He had to go #2 this time. I quickly helped him take them off while he sat there, and he finished up in the potty. His first ever poop in the potty! I praised him, and we took the poop to be flushed down the toilet. He also got to wash his hands. He was pretty excited about the whole process so I decided against giving him any treat for doing things correctly. He clearly already had plenty of positive reinforcement.

Later that evening, the hubs came home. Little Dude got all excited and had another accident. He seemed upset about it, but didn't make much effort to go to the potty at all. I repeated to him that it was important not to pee pee in his underwear as I changed them. That was it for Wednesday since he went to bed before there were any more learning opportunities.

- Today -

So that, in a nutshell, is where we stand going into today. I know it will take a little longer since he hasn't been able to be diaper-less all the time, but I am pretty confident that he will get it soon enough. In the meantime, I can't wait to never say the words "do you need to potty bud? Remember, no pee pee-ing on Nemo/car/superman/whatever" ever again. . . at least until its Baby Boo's turn. Potty training is definitely all about repetition and lots of patience.