Potty Training, Part III: He Did It!

Owen pooped on the potty! I'm a few days behind, it actually happened on Thursday night. He had gone to daycare in undies (still to this day he has only had one accident in undies, and that was very early on!) and when we got home, he wanted a diaper on. Dead giveaway that he needed to poop. I had said that I wasn't going to push him to go poop, but I definitely wanted to wait an hour or two before giving in. I reminded him about the dump truck and convinced him to try. We got as far as putting his Elmo seat on the potty ("So I don't fall in!" he says) and getting his shorts and underwear off before he told me he didn't have to go. So he played in the living room for awhile, and after about 20 minutes came up to me and said, "Mom, I got to go poop!"

"Let's try sitting on the potty, then!"

"LET'S GO, MOMMY!"

Ryan and I exchanged looks like, 'Is this happening?!' and I crossed my fingers at him. Owen and I ran back to the potty, and luckily I hadn't put his undies or shorts back on, because I barely got him on there and there was poop in the potty! I did my little potty dance for him and told him I was so happy. He said, "And Daddy will be so happy, and Nana will be so happy!"

So Owen got his big dump truck, a box of M&Ms (to share with Mommy and Daddy), and got to call Nana and tell her the big news. I am so proud of my BIG BOY!

That night I went out to supper to celebrate a friend's birthday and I got this picture text from Ryan

with the message: Poop on the potty like a big boy for the second time tonight!!!!

So for going poop again, he got to pick something out of his prize box. To my delight, he picket alphabet magnets to put on the fridge, and when I got home, he was excited to show me that he had them up already.

I'm a nerd and made him spell out his name for the picture!

He sometimes gets upset that he has to wear a diaper to bed, so I may have to try buying Pull-Ups and convincing him that they are underwear for nighttime. My mom did appease him by putting undies over his diaper one night, so maybe I can just do that, too. He wakes up dry most of the time, but I'm not ready to send him to bed in just undies yet. He is doing an AWESOME job, though.

Underwear!

Today is the first day that Owen went to daycare in underwear! (He was a little cranky yesterday morning and said he didn't want to wear underwear, so I didn't push it.) He was so proud of himself, too!

He picked his Spiderman underwear to wear today.

And we have been using underwear around the house in the evenings after daycare, so here he is last night.

I'm surprised he posed so nicely for this picture, because I interrupted him watching cartoons to take it. ;)

He told me last night that we wouldn't pee on Spiderman today because then Spiderman would get him! I played along and said, "Oh yeah, you wouldn't want that!" and he looked at me like I was crazy. He said, "No, Mommy, he won't get me! He's just on my underwear!" (Imagine his brow furrowed like he's mad I would think such a thing.) Can't get much passed him!


UPDATE 8/23/12: Owen went ALL DAY in his undies, kept them dry and clean! Way to go, Owen! Johnna says he doesn't pee as often as her son does, but I guess that makes it easier on us! No poops yet, though.

Potty Training, Part II

My little monkey is doing such a good job with potty training! I'm so proud of him! Last week went awesome, I think he peed in his diaper 2x the whole week! And one time was during the night! Otherwise he has woken up completely dry. Yay! He even told me in the car on the way out to eat that he had to pee, and I asked if he could hold it until we got to the restaurant. He told me yes, and when we got there, he peed on the potty there!

But still no poops on the potty. I was so sure the dump truck was going to be enough motivation, but he just isn't ready for that step yet. Every day he says that he will poop on the potty, but when it comes down to it, he still refuses. I have been getting him naked when we get home from daycare, and a few times he has cried for me to put his diaper on him because he wants to poop in it. I don't put it back on until bedtime, so he has sat on the potty multiple times to "try", but he just won't do it and then ends up with a belly ache because he's holding it in. Poor kid.

A forward step, though, is that even if he has a diaper on, he almost will ask for permission to poop in it. Out of nowhere he will say, "I don't want to poop in the potty!" So I'll ask if he needs to poop, he will say yes, I'll try to persuade him for a few minutes to try on the potty, he will refuse, and I'll tell him he can poop in his diaper. "I can poop in my diaper?" he'll ask. After I tell him yes again, he'll go find somewhere private to poop. This weekend we were camping, so he asked me to open the door to the camper for him because, "I want to poop on Daddy's bed." : ) So he was in there a good 15 minutes, pooping on our bed. I checked on him once, to make sure it was going ok (he hadn't pooped the day before, so I was worried he was constipated), and he said he was fine and for me to "go away". Then a few minutes later he opened the door to the camper and yelled out to me, "Leave me alone!" and then just went back in to go about his business.

All in all, though, he's doing such an awesome job. Johanna (daycare provider) told me on Friday that he is doing so awesome and that if he did well over the weekend, she would be ok with him coming to her house in underwear this week. I sent him in a diaper today, because the weekend kind of threw us off a routine and it was hard to get him to try when he was playing with his friends at the campground. He still did awesome this weekend, though, and if he does his usual great job today, I'll send him in undies tomorrow if he tells me its ok with him. : )

I also went to the doctor today. I'm 17 weeks and everything is looking as it should. Blood pressure and blood sugar were normal, uterus growing at the right speed, baby's heart rate was 148. The only thing she mentioned was my weight gain - only 5 lbs so far - but that as long as I'm eating and feeling ok, she expects my weight will catch up later! I remember with Owen, they also mentioned my weight gain was slow, but I ended up gaining the 30 lbs they recommended, so I'm not too worried. They also scheduled my big ultrasound for September 10 (3 weeks away), so we are very excited for that and then I go back for my regular appointment the next week. Something to look forward to after Labor Day and summer ending.

Potty Training, Part I

**Long post all about pee and poop : )

Every morning for the past week, Owen has been going pee pee on the potty. He has gone on the potty before, but now it is much more regular. It started one night when Owen and I had just gotten out of the shower and he was in my room with me still naked. We were talking and he suddenly turned and left and ran into the bathroom. He even got ON the potty all by himself and just started going! I was so happy and as a reward, Owen got LOTS of Reeses Pieces (or as he just calls them, M&Ms). That was a bit of a mistake, because the rule quickly changed to just 2 M&Ms for pee pee and 4 for poopy, but he wasn't very happy the first few times when he only got 2 - "I want wots of M&Ms, Mommy!"

So Ryan and I have been VERY happy that he is making progress going pee pee, but he was very against going poop on the potty. He always announces that he has to poop, so every time I will ask him/try to convince him to go on the potty, but he tells me NO! every time. So I haven't pushed it. And when we would talk about it, he would tell me that it's hard to go poop on the potty, but the word of the week for us has been TRY! I give him examples of things he has learned now that he has tried to do them a few times, like opening the front door from the outside. For the longest time, he would REFUSE to even try to open the door to get back in, which I will be honest, was very annoying. But after lots of tears and frustration, he finally tried it, and lo and behold found out that he actually could do it, and now he does it all the time and he is still proud of himself for doing it. So Ryan and I keep telling him he just needs to try going poop on the potty. And now, we have a new system.

Instead of 4 M&Ms for poop, we decided on prizes. So we told Owen that if he went poopoo on the potty, we would get him a new toy. We thought it was a good idea, but soon found out that the idea of a new toy is not motivational for a 2 and a half year old. So, we hit up Walmart Sunday night and bought him a big CAT dump truck, plus a prize box and various other prizes.

And we showed him all the goodies.

And we set them on a table where he can see them.

But, he has to poop on the potty to get them!

That kicked motivation into high gear. He wants that dump truck pretty bad! And bless his little heart, he tried 3 times Sunday night and once Monday morning to go. He just didn't have to, poor kid. After the first poop, he gets to pick a goody from the prize box, which includes cars, temporary tattoos, treats, and a Clifford movie.  The prize box is also see through, for some added motivation. : )

Monday morning started the same way the last few mornings have. I got Owen up, took off his diaper (which was almost completely dry, maybe one little pee during the night), and asked if he wanted to pee on the potty. And he did and got 2 M&Ms for his reward. Every morning I write in Owen's daycare book (what time he got up, if he ate any breakfast, when I changed him, etc), so I wrote, again, that he peed on the potty and got a treat. Johnna (the daycare lady) has a son that is just 2 weeks older than Owen, and since she knew that Owen was starting to go on the potty, she told me that she was starting to potty train her son and asked if I wanted her to train Owen during the day. Of course! So at daycare, the boys get 1 M&M for trying (she must set a timer and has them sit on the potty when it goes off), 2 M&Ms for pee and 3 M&Ms for poop. I got a text after lunch that he had a dry diaper ALL morning! I was so happy! And when I picked him up at 5, she said he had on the same diaper that he came with! He peed on the potty ALL DAY! Whoo hoo! She writes in his notebook all day, so she wrote down every time he tried, every time he went, what he ate, when he napped, etc. He did such a good job! And Johnna and I both agreed that it's probably easier for both the boys to have a potty buddy. It's more fun with a friend!

So after that, I was even more certain that last night was the night for pooping on the potty. Plus, it was Ryan's birthday, so I had even more to bribe Owen with if necessary - birthday brownies.

But unfortunately, Owen had a big mood swing and was very uncooperative and stubborn last night. As soon as we got home I asked him if he had to go potty and he just flat out refused to even try to go pee. And right before supper, he put his shoes on to go outside (he really likes to poop outside. I think it's because of the dogs, I'm not kidding. Or maybe he just likes the fresh air, but he prefers to poop by one of the trees in our yard.) and I quick grabbed him and tried to remind him of the dump truck, but he was SO mad at me. Kicking, hitting, crying. Finally we calmed him down, and even took the dump truck out of it's package to show him. Then we sweetened the deal by getting out a package of M&Ms from his prize box, PLUS let him pick 2 tattoos, AND told him we could call Nana if he went on the potty (he LOVES talking on the phone). He wanted the truck and all the goodies, but just didn't want to go on the potty. And maybe it was all the kicking and screaming, but he managed to poop in his diaper at some point without us realizing it anyway. Bummer.

But after we cleaned him up, we put him in some Captain America underwear and he kept those clean and dry for the rest of the night, and peed on the potty right before bed. This morning, his diaper was pretty wet, but again, pee on the potty. I hope the day and night go the same.