Potty Training

I have been putting off potty training Emory for a little while now. After going to our first Thomson Family Reunion last week and seeing all the other boys his age potty trained, I think I gained some motivation. Plus, I simply ran out of excuses. I kept saying I needed to finish nursing McKelle and wait till she was old enough to play on her own so I could tend to Emory when he needed it. Then I used the reunion as an excuse that would throw off our hard work. Finally, it came to the point that Emory was asking to be potty trained. We bought a pretty cool fire truck and said he couldn't play with it until he was potty trained. He kept saying, "want to potty train momma!" So we bought some big boy undies on Monday and started potty training on Tuesday.

I pumped lots of apple juice into him and pulled lots of toys into the kitchen where we played all day for two days straight. I started off by putting him on the potty every 5 minutes until he successfully peed three times. Then, I pushed the timer to 10 minutes, then 15 and so on. He had his first accident at 20 minutes. It was a full on pee down his leg and all. I think it was necessary for him to see and feel what an accident was. He had one more little accident, like a drop on his undies before he stopped himself and sat on the potty, before nap time. He had a third full on accident that evening while watching a show and I was making dinner. I shouldn't have let him watch a show that first day because he just got so captivated by the show he forgot to think about peeing on the potty and I forgot to ask him if he needed to go pee. But we learned from it. 

The second day, he only had two accidents and by the third day, only one. We even went to the park for over an hour on the third day. I brought the little potty to the park and he peed on it out in the open :) That night I was putting McKelle to bed and Emory was downstairs by himself. I forgot to have him pee before I left and thought I should have put a diaper on him but as I was walking out of McKelle's room he came up the stairs with his undies down to his angles. I asked if he went potty or had an accident and he walked downstairs to show me. I asked him where it was and that he needed to show me but he tried to hid under McKelle's walker and said, "go by yourself." I saw that he had taken the little potty out of the big garbage bag from the park and went pee inside! I was super proud of him. Then he told me he had a little accident on the floor and showed me where it was. So, he must have peed a little bit, stopped peeing and taken the potty out of the bag and then finished peeing on the potty. Overall, I was very impressed! He solved a problem for something he was still just learning how to do. I think it was a success!

So now, less than a week later, he's totally potty trained. We went to Walmart yesterday and have had no accidents the last two days now. It went so much better than I ever could have imagined. I think because he had already gone on the potty before just at random times before bath or whatever, he didn't have to learn that part of potty training. I was just training him to recognize when he needed to pee and I was training myself to remember to take him potty! Even now, it's usually just me saying, "ok, it's potty time" every hour or so, although sometimes he will tell me himself that he needs to go. He has pooped on the potty before but not since we officially started potty training. He usually has poop in his diaper right after he wakes up in the morning. 

He is just the cutest little thing in his big boy undies though. I love watching him walk around all grown up. He loves his undies too. It's been fun to see him grow up a little bit. It was a fun experience to have with him and see him learn and grow. It was also really nice to just focus on him for a few days and not worry about laundry or dishes or anything else. We stayed in the kitchen and focused on only fun things like toys, games, puzzles, crafts and even made cookies. All in all, it was a good experience and I'm really proud of him!