Live Potty Training Blogging

Warning: this a typical "mommy blogger" post, feel free to skip if you don't like to read about potty training adventures.

The original title of this post was "How Potty Training Isn't Working Here Yet," but I decided to change it and to try live-blogging the day. So I'll update a few more times later, OK?

Bonus: a photo from way back in January 2005 when Linton was 6 months and Kelvin 34 months and we had them sit on their potties while watching a video (with no results, unfortunately).A couple of months ago my SIL trained her son in two days by going cold-turkey: putting underwear on and letting him wet or soil them. After 3 times he got the idea and started using the potty. Wonderful! Good for them! Not too good for us since now the pressure's on ;). I've already tried to go cold-turkey a few times since my nephew was trained and all I got were puddles on carpet, wet clothes, etc. Oh, on a side note, my nephew is 4 months younger than my son (who turned three 26 days ago), so he was a bit over 2 and a half when he was trained...

[For the record, training Kelvin was quite hard, it only worked because we were in Brazil, it was warm (it'll be cold next month there) and he went without pants for a few days. My parents' house has all ceramic floors and sidewalks and grass all around it, so he quickly learned to go on the grass and, later, on the toilet. This was just around his 3rd b-day. Number 2 took a year and a half more...]

Well, I thought I'd share how it's been going today so far for Linton. (as you may recall from a previous post, he's also having trouble with constipation).

10 a.m.: Husband leaves for work and forgets to tell me that the 3 year old Linton is not wearing a diaper.

10:30 a.m.: He's crying loudly downstairs, older brother goes to investigate and comes saying that his brother wasn't wearing a diaper and had peed on his pants. I go change him -- he had peed through these and his shorts and was sitting on the sofa while that happened -- sofa got a bit wet, but not too bad. I put another pair of the training pants and shorts

11 a.m.: gets wet again and immediately screams in a bit of distress: "Mommy change my pants, I peed!" This time it was on the carpet, but it didn't leak too much and I was able to blot most of it.

11:40 a.m.: He was playing in the basement and comes upstairs wet again. This time he's very calm and just asks me matter-of-factly to change his clothes.

1:15 p.m.: lunchtime.

1:45 p.m.: when he gets out of his booster seat, he's all wet and I have no idea when he's done and I suspect that he ate his whole lunch all wet. This goes to show that his level of tolerance gets higher and higher as he gets wet more often.

4 training pants, 1 t-shirt and 4 shorts in less than 3 hours... I'm getting tired of this.

2:10 p.m.: He's been half-undressed for a while, but the boys want to watch a video , so I put some pull-ups on him.

2:40 p.m.: video's over, so I put training pants back on.

3:05 p.m.: for the second time he acts like he has to go (the way he does when he has to poop but doesn't want to), but I don't know whether it's pee of poop, so I put pull-ups. It looks like it's number 2, but he doesn't want to go.

3:20 p.m.: I think he peed on the diaper. :(

We have two more pairs of training pants, let's see how this will go until they're all wet and I'll call it a day...

[updates to come here]

3:32 p.m.: Linton tells me (for the second time) that he peed on his diapers and that he wants new ones, but I want to wait until he, hopefully, poops.

3:39 p.m.: he finally poops (a new record, the last four poops -- last week on Sunday, Monday, last Thursday and today didn't have external aid, i.e. suppository). I put him back on training pants but he says I want a diaper and tells me he doesn't want to pee [on his clothes, I assume]. Let's see how it goes.

between 5:30-6 p.m.: daddy had him sit on the little potty for 4 minutes using a timer and ice-cream as a reward.

7:25-7:30 p.m.: I noticed he needed to pee and went outside to see if he'd do it in the grass. He did a few drops and agreed to go inside. He went a bit more standing in front of the little potty, then the toilet and sat on the toilet. I don't think he peed all he needed, but he was OK with it, and is still dry.

Tomorrow we start again, but just to be on the safe side I'll wash and dry the other 4 training pants. (probably by hand, since I can't bear do use the washer and drier for only a few pieces of clothing).

Concluding thoughts:
I know I have to be patient and that it takes time, I know I could/should buy the vinyl covers to go with the training pants to minimize laundry, I know I could switch him to cloth diapers too... And finally, I know that training will eventually happen, but I also know that it takes tons of self-discipline to train him, and that, I don't have, plain and simple. You'll get tired of me in no time, I know, because it looks like this problem (self-discipline) is going to be the central topic of a few more posts (like it was in the previous one, albeit in disguise as "disorganization")...

P.S. Last Thursday at his 3 year check up the doctor told us to use Myralax, which is now over-the-counter as some of you had already told me. I started today.