Adventures in Potty Training

When we pulled out the cloth diapers again, Jed decided he did not like them.

At all.

Which seemed a perfect reason to begin potty training, something I’ve been putting off doing. With so much going on in our lives, that just seemed like one thing too much, you know? I knew it would happen; I just wasn’t stressing out about it.

So after I dug out the cloth diapers, I also dug out the itty-bitty 2T underwear we’d bought for Jed last year and got started with Potty Training.

Also known as “Parent Training”.

Much like dog training, at first, potty training is more about training the parents. I have to remember to remind Jed to go potty on the toilet. I have to remember to remind him to wash his hands.

I’m having to train myself  to not depend on the convenience and hands-off ease of diapers.

At first? It kind of sucked.

Everything I’ve read about potty training says you should reward the child with a treat for going potty on the toilet…M&M’s or Hershey’s Kisses are commonly cited as appropriate rewards. Or, for the health-conscious, small stickers.

All of which are not allowed in our house for health reasons.

Then I hit on something – Jed LOVES to put money in his piggy banks. How about we reward him with money?

So I got two rolls of nickels at the bank, and told Jed he could earn a nickel every time he went potty on the toilet.

The kid’s gonna be a rich man soon, let me tell ya. He WANTS his nickels. He LIKES his nickels.

I should have offered pennies. 

Overall, he’s doing great!

But what would my stories be without a little Truth and Reality thrown in? I keep it real, here, folks.

About three days after we started, we had a rough day. It was like he forgot he was supposed to be using the toilet; like he forgot all about those coveted nickels.

One time, he was watching You Tube on my phone at the dinner table. The chair was pushed out from the table and he was sort of planking between the two, when suddenly, he let loose with a stream of pee that I would have admired – had it been in the toilet. Instead, I had a gigantic puddle of piss on my dining room floor.

Ugh.

Another time, I was nursing Zac to sleep for his nap in our bedroom. Jed was happily playing in the living room, until I saw him waddling toward us down the hall.

It was his “I pooped” waddle.

Oh. No.

I scream/whispered for him to go into the bathroom, which he did. For all of 45 seconds. Then he came back out – this time holding his poopy underwear in his hands.

Yeah, you guessed it. In the short time it took for me to unlatch Zac and get in there to help Jed, he’d slung poop all over the floors and walls of my hallway.

That was a moment when I really, REALLY missed diapers!

Another time he pooped in his underwear and smeared it all over the loveseat cushion. This was while we were at the craft show, and my Mom was taking care of the boys.

While she was hosing off Jed’s heinie, Zac went over and ‘feasted’ on his poop.

EW. EW. EW. EW.

For some reason, this bothers me more than Zac eating cat poop! EW EW EW EW EW.

He had a mild reaction for a couple days, then was fine. Less of a reaction than eating cat poop, in fact. Huh.

Speaking of poop, I’m a little worried. Ever since we started with the underwear, Jed really doesn’t want to poop. I think he’s “self-constipating”, if you know what I mean. I think pooping in the potty is scary for him, and he doesn’t like pooping in his underwear either. So he just holds it in. Those two poop stories are the only times he’s pooped in the last 9 days.

I keep expecting to find a poopy diaper in the morning, but so far, 6 out of 7 nights he was bone-dry when we first wake up.

Not sure what to do about a kiddo who usually poops at least once a day suddenly going many (3 and 4) days between poops just because he’s scared to go in the toilet.

It’s also contributing to a little crankiness in his mood. Well, I’d be cranky, too, if I couldn’t poop. So I hope we can figure out something to do about this soon. I’ve offered him TWO nickels if he’ll poop on the potty, but no dice.

Hmm. Is a puzzlement.

Oh, one of the cutest potty training stories came when he decided he wanted to try  to go poop on the toilet. He climbed up, informed me that I needed to go “back to the live room”, but then immediately yelled for me to come turn on the lights in his bedroom because “Thomas is in the dark”. (The half bath and his bedroom are directly across the hall from each other.)

So I turned on the lights in his bedroom, and asked if that was good. He looked hesitant for a minute, then decided “I want a book!”

But not just any book, oh no. He had a particular book in mind, and would not get back on the toilet until I procured “A Crack in the Track” for him!

Book in hand, he climbed up on the toilet, where he could see his Thomas bed in the light in his bedroom, and ‘read’ “A Crack in the Track” to himself. I’ve never seen him ‘read’ like that before! It was so precious! He would tell the story to himself as he turned the pages (can you tell we’ve read that book about a million times? I have it memorized.).

He didn’t actually go poop in the toilet, but he hung out there for quite a long time. And I gave him two nickels for trying so hard.

Aside from some mis-steps, all in all this is turning out to be a lovely gift for Mama. We went to town two times this last week and both times he peed in public toilets with no problems. He even made it all the way through speech therapy without any accidents!

Not having to change his diaper when we’re out in public is lovely. The fact that anyone could take him to the toilet now is just icing.

We’re still doing diapers at night, even though he wakes up dry as a bone in the morning. We probably will for a while, until we’re confident he won’t have any accidents.

After all, he likes to come to our bed in the middle of the night and I really don’t want to wake up in a puddle of pee.

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Speaking of waking up, I thought I’d share with you WHY Darrel and I are so tired every single day of our lives.

Daylight savings time is kicking our butts. Ever since the time change, I’ve wound up going to bed with the kids at 8 p.m.

Tuesday night, I was asleep at 8 p.m. Zac woke up at 10 p.m. to eat. Then he woke up at midnight to eat. Then he woke up at 12:50 a.m. to eat.

Then at 2 a.m. Jed woke up and – shocker here – wanted me to take him back to his bed to sleep (guess he was getting tired of Zac waking him up).

I slept on his toddler bed until about 3:30 a.m., when Zac woke up in our bedroom to eat.

I nursed him, then I realized I was starving! I’d been “sleeping” for 7.5 hours at that point, so it makes sense that I was awake. So I made myself some french fries, and at 5 a.m., Zac woke up again to eat. So I laid down to feed him, and was just about to doze off when Darrel’s alarm clock went off for work.

That also prompted Zac to wake up to eat again. So at 6 a.m., I nursed him again.

I was just about to fall asleep again, when Jed came running in to our bedroom and crawled into bed with us. At 6:30 a.m., just as Darrel left the house.

I managed to hold Jed still for a whopping half an hour, before he decided Zac and I needed to be UP FOR THE DAY and literally jumped on us until we both got out of bed.

Despite 7.5 hours straight of sleep, and two little cat naps between waking up and getting up, I felt like I’d been run over all day on Wednesday.

And Wednesday night wasn’t much different. In fact, it might have been worse; Zac decided we needed to all BE AWAKE at 6 a.m. and climbed on both Jed and me until we woke up.

I am NOT a morning person by nature.

I’ve been so tired that I’ve fallen asleep with my jeans on three nights in a row.

Daylight Savings Time can kiss my lily white heinie. 

And we have GOT to find something to feed Zac. Being woken up every hour to hour and a half all night long every night is slowly snuffing out the grey matter in my brain. Seventeen months of that, folks. He’s still nursing like a newborn.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go sit in the corner and drool as I stare into space.

Or maybe I’ll take Jed to the toilet again. Yeah. That’s probably better.

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What are your best stories of potty training and sleep deprivation with young kids? Please share!