Operation Diaper Free: Day 1

All I have to say about today is…oh dear.

The beginning.

We started out things at 6:40am when Avery got up. He had soaked through his nighttime diaper and was obviously extremely uncomfortable because when I picked him up he kept his knees together.  Ugh. So I quickly removed the diaper and put him in a longish shirt, his first of three for the day.

I pulled out the little potty into the living room and explained that today was the day! The day he’s going to stop having annoying diaper changes (which he HATES), the day he gets to run around naked and the day he will only go on the toilet.

I got him breakfast and he immediately peed on the carpet without a single signal. Not cool.

I got him a cup full of honey water to keep him actively drinking so we would have plenty of opportunities for training and boy oh boy were there plenty. He was peeing about once every few minutes, not big pees, but significant enough that I went through quite a few wash cloths to clean them up.

Progress…..sort of?

By 9:30am he was telling me he needed to go before each pee. You’d think that would have helped things except that he would have rather climbed into a shark’s mouth than onto the toilet or his little potty. In fact he fought it so hard we had some serious head butting.

He was definitely ready for some rest by naptime and he when he woke up (with a very soaked diaper) he was ready to fight some more.

I got him to pee in his little potty one time and made a big deal about putting it into the big toilet and saying bye bye when I flushed it and washed his hands and had him use the towel by himself and he seemed excited but then immediately peed without communication after that. So frustrating!

Slightly more progress….if we’re being positive

I was nearly at the end of my rope when I decided to take a step back. I knew that my take was obviously not working and needed to think up something different. The result was a new position and using only the big toilet. He has never liked the little potty so I just nixed it. Instead, I put him on the toilet backwards. That way he can relax on the front curve of the seat, not use the annoyingly small toddler seat I generally put on top, and he can see where his pee is going.

It worked like a dream. He went, thought it was great and seemed to enjoy the experience. Not fighting, no holding til I turn my back and peeing it all out, not just a little (yes, that happened many times).

After that I waited for him to tell me he needed to go and I put him back on when he did. Unfortunately he was holding some food and part of it fell into the toilet and he completely tensed up pointing frantically into the toilet yelling ‘uh oh! uh oh!’. He didn’t go. So I flushed and decided to wait a few minutes but Shane walked in the door right after that and before I knew it, Avery was having an accident. Oops!

I knew he was little emotionally delicate at that point and right after I put him in his nighttime diaper he pooped.  You can’t win them all…

So, my take tomorrow will be to encourage a lot of communication, utilize our new position, and stay relaxed. I definitely let his rebellion to the toilet and potty get to me today and I think it made for a bad atmosphere.

The two things we managed to get down were him running to me and telling me he needed to go potty each time and finding the right position. If we can build on that I think we have a shot of being potty trained this week.  It didn’t feel like much progress but at least I have a direction.

Eli did great the whole time and even learned a new skill himself.

But mostly he slept thank goodness!

Question: Any potty training tips? Definitely could use any advice you might have!