Great News

Less than a week after my last post, requesting potty training help, my dd A decided to start using the potty! She went from refusing to consider it to totally trained in less than a week. I created a sticker reward chart for her, and for her brother K, where they received a prize after 3 BMs. Unbelievably, her "output" in the initial weeks of potty training increased, and she was getting a prize daily! I hoped it would influence K, and he did start trying more, but had no success. I began feeling sorry for him. After about 2 weeks, he did it! Two days in a row, he had a BM in the toilet. Daryl and I were not sure that it was totally intentional, because he made remarks that led us to believe he was somewhat surprised. Nonetheless, he received prizes (his sister can't really count and we wanted to reward his success) and a HUGE fuss was made. Then he had several accidents in a row. One day I went to the health club, and he had an accident at the child care center there, but it was a tiny amount and I knew he was holding it. Later in the day, as we were preparing to go to the movies to see Ratatouille, I instructed him to try again, but he refused, and a few minutes later had another accident, again only a small amount. As a consequence, I left him at home with an older sibling, my heart breaking at his tears, but I felt that since he refused to try and he clearly still had to go, he was literally an accident waiting to happen. I did explain my reasons for leaving him. The next day he went on the toilet, and he clearly knew it was going to happen and went in to the bathroom, unannounced and without prompting. It was a breakthrough moment. He hasn't had an accident since!

We cancelled his appointment with the special clinic, which was supposed to be Aug. 28, because he had been accident free for almost a week at that time, and was going frequently, not just every 2-3 days. It was a bold move, because we made that appt. 6 weeks earlier, but we were not disappointed.

Clearly, he wasn't really ready before, although I just couldn't accept/believe that. Hopefully our next child won't have this problem, but if it should happen again, I will remember this with more patience.

Those first few weeks of 2 newly potty trained kids were exhausting--I was spending a huge amount of time in the bathroom, either just being there, or wiping, cleaning the little potty, etc. I actually wondered if I should have been more careful what I wished for! Now, however, life is SO easy with all of my children potty trained! We got rid of the little potty when we moved, so we don't have to deal with that anymore. Our next challenge will be teaching them to wipe themselves! And of course, going back to diapers when the baby arrives.

Thanks to everyone who shared their experiences and advice with me. It was nice to know that I wasn't alone or doing something "wrong"!