The Wisers: The four P's

Poop. Pee. Potty. Pray.

That's about all I have been doing since Thursday evening. That's when I decided it was time. Time to take the plunge and potty train Zach. Brian was out of town, I had four days to myself. I could devote every waking minute to him. So after talking to Zachs amazing baby sitter, getting her agreement to help, it was on. We drove to walmart, and Zach found cars underwear, a cars toilet, funny stickers, a cars potty chart, and a gun that made noises. Oh and gummy bears. We were ready.

THURSDAY

We tried setting a timer every 15 min and going potty. Not working. At all. There had to be another way.

We were getting ready for bed, and I told Zach that we were going to wear big boy pants in the morning because diapers were yucky. He looks at me and says "ewww" ,"gucky". Haha this kid. So we read his bug book for the fourth time that day, said our prayers and he went to bed.

FRIDAY

Holy hell this was the worst day.

Thursday night I was talking to my cousin. She and our other cousin trained all 8 of their kids with the three day training method by Lora Jensen. Her philosophy is positive reinforcement. As soon as I learned that, I knew it was something I would be interested in. I love PR. Rewarded for doing something is how Brian and I have raised Zach so far. The reward is either a praise, or object, but it allows him to chose for him self. One thing we try not to do is say, Zach if you do this, then you get such and such. That doesn't work well. It doesn't allow him to chose for him self. We just reward good, chosen behavior, and don't use bribes. So that's what her method is all about.

First you throw away all crutches. All of them. Pull ups, diapers, everything. If you are going to do this thing, then do it right and don't have something to fall back on. Easy enough. So we were done with diapers. Another thing she talks about, is don't set a timer. It doesn't allow them to recognize their own body signals. Well that answers my question from yesterday. So that was easy, I didn't have to keep track of time as much. Cool. The not so cool thing, is that I have to just let Zach roam around in his underwear, and when he has an accident, I rush him to the potty. Her theory is that if he has an accident, and mom rushes him to the potty, the connection will be made that he needs to go pee, in the potty. Makes sense to me, so I went with it. She also says that you can't leave your child side. At all. Not for one second. Boy was that true. I would turn around, and in that time he had peed on the floor already. Geez. Then she also said, to change the way you ask if he needs to go potty. Two year olds want to be independent. But they also want to please you. Boy isn't that the truth. So there were two phrases I had to use, thousands of times. "Zach, is your underwear dry" and " Zach, tell me if you you need to go potty"

Her reason behind telling him to tell me if he has to go potty, was that they want to be the one in charge. You ask if they have to go potty, then they are going to say no. I didn't agree with this 100 percent, so I asked, " Zach do you need to go potty, (he would usually say no) then I would tell him to tell me when he needed to go, which he always replied, "o Tay". That seemed to work ok for us. So that's pretty much her concept. Anytime he had an accident, and finished in the potty, he got a sticker, gummy bear, and funny enough, the biggest motivator for Zach, was the chance to flush the toilet. So that's what we went with.

We quarantined ourselves in the kitchen, cause I didn't want to clean pee off the carpet, and went to work. I literally went to work. I work from home, so moved my office to the kitchen table and I between, power points, emails, phone calls and incentives, I was running back and forth to the potty, washing underwear, and asking if he had to go potty and if his underwear was dry. His toy box was moved to the kitchen, and away we went. Basically, he would have an accident, we would rush to the potty, with no success. 12 hours straight of this exact thing. Underwear was hanging everywhere to dry. I went and bought 12 more pairs when uncle kevin was here for ten min. We went through a lot of underwear.

The theory is all based on positivity. I had to be positive about everything, and constantly praise good things. If his diaper was dry, praise. If it was dry five min later, praise. If he sat on the potty with out whining, praise. Constant praise. It was exhausting.

The entire day was exhausting but we made it. Barely. Bedtime came early for Zach, and I had to check out for the day. So I watched five episodes of breaking bad. Day one came to an end. I was discouraged, but decided to check some forums. It seemed like this was normal. Everyone had the same issue in the first day. But they had success the following day. That helped. Whew. Day one is done.

SATURDAY

I usually wake up and Zach is already awake. I didnt want that to happen now. I wanted to be awake, and catch him as soon as he woke up and put him on the potty. Thats what I did. And he went potty. Our first success. HOLLA. It may have been an accident, but you better believe that I hailed the praise on him. Laid it on, like it was snowing in December. He was so excited to flush the toilet, and to put stickers on his chart. He is into the number two, and asked for two stickers, so I gave him two and he loved it. Then to top it off, I told him that because he went potty, he gets a gummy bear. He ran to the pantry, and asked for two. Ok well I guess this is what we are going with. Two. Bam. Our first success.

I had primary practice that morning so my mom was going to watch him for a few hours. What a wonderful woman. To volunteer to watch a potty training 2 year old. Wonderful mom I have. He had an accident at her house before I left, which gave me reason to worry. But it was nice to take a small break. Four hours later, I walked in my moms house to find him in the same underwear as I left him in. He stayed dry, and went potty once!!! Seriously, my mom's cooler than yours. This was so exciting for me. I had no plans that night, and thanked my mom, took Zach home, and had a new, positive outlook.

I put Zach down for a nap, he woke up wet. Accident number two. Dang. But, looking for positives, his exponential growth in accident/success ratio was wonderful. So when he woke up, I asked him if his underwear was dry. He looked at me and said "gucky". Praise the heavens, a connection!!! So we went potty, and I decided to give him some more freedom. I opened the kitchen to the rest of the house. Daring, but Zach knows when I am trying to pull something over him, so we opened the house up. Here we go.

No accidents the rest of the day. I continued to ask about potty and his dry underwear. Every hour or so, I would casually go to the bathroom, Zach would follow and go potty. Boom. Flush, sticker, gummy bears. Bam bam bam. Progress yo. Progress.

But Sunday was looming. Church, a drive to tooele and a family party. We would be gone 12 hours. Shizzzzz.

SUNDAY

He woke up wet. Dang. He had two accidents in the morning. Double dang. We headed to church. In tooele. I put on his undies, his plastic pants, and off we went. We got to the church, I took him to the potty. Boom success. Church was over, we went to the potty. He didn't have to go. We got to my aunts house, took him potty. Success! Dinner, chatting, playing, and packing to go. One more success before we left and we were on our way home. Whew. Almost made a successful, two hour round trip, with no accidents.

As I said earlier, Brian was out of town which is a major reason I decided to do this. I was able to devote all my time to Zach. So Brian left the country for five days, and I kept saying to kevin and
Kirsten, how cool would it be if Zach was potty trained by the time Brian came back? Well we went home, I went to pick up Brian from his parents, and showed him Zach going potty. Boom. Wife of the
year. So Sunday we had two accidents, and more than plenty successes. All while Zach and I were sick mind you. Forgot to mention that. I have an amazing boy.

MONDAY

Called in sick. Gah elephant on my chest. Let's see how today was going to go. In short. No accidents. Well one poop accident, but I don't count those yet. We aren't that far along. So no accidents, all successes. Totally worth the anti social life weekend. If you want to do it, do it. Don't go half hearted into it. Get rid of the clutches, and devote every min of your life for three days to your kid. It's worth it. Bam. Now enjoy some pictures.

Laser gun/sword as the end incentive- he loves it and is defiantly his fathers son.