Friday, March 23, 2007

Potty Power!

Since Andrew's birthday I've been working with him to get him more familiar with going to the bathroom on the toilet. We've used his training potty for a while and we finally got him to go Pee Pee on the toilet. Since Andrew has only occasionally gone pee pee on the potty I decided to finally break down and purchase an e-book on how to potty-train your child in 3 days or less. It was an easy read, which I read a few times to get myself ready for the big day. I had to mentally get myself ready for the messes and clean ups etc.
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I also bought Andrew a couple of DVD's on the subject. One which I recommend is called "Potty POWER!" It's really cute and they have real children (instead of animated figures)in the DVD so I think the kids relate better to it. I also got him another DVD called "Elmo goes to the potty" or something like that...not sure of the title. The Elmo DVD is okay...for real little ones if teaching on or around the age of 2 years old. I thought the Potty Power DVD was the best instructional as well as had a cute storyline.



I was mentally prepared and set aside Thursday, Friday and Saturday to devote strickly to Potty training. In the book it says to stay by your child's side for the entire day 3 consecutive days in a row. This way you can see the gestures and know exactly when your child needs to use the toilet.



I was quite impressed the first 2 days of training Andrew since he was running to the toilet for half of the amount of times he went in the day and the other half of the time he had an accident or didn't quite make it there on time. I was impressed since the previous months I was introducing the potty to him, I would have to tell him to sit on the toilet and would only sit there (without going)when I'd ask him to.



I figured "Wow! This is really working. By the third day he should be completely trained." WRONG!! The third day fell on a Saturday and Robert was home that day, therefore, Andrew didn't have my full attention and wasn't by my side the whole day as the last 2 previous days he was. MY FAULT....I didn't follow the book. Well wouldn't you know that WHOLE day he would have accident after accident and didn't even try to go to the bathroom in the toilet even when I would prompt him.



It was 7:00pm that night and by then I was so frustrated since he did so well the last couple of days and didn't even try on the third day. By 7:00pm I went into his room to get him ready for bed and changed him into a diaper. As I was trying to put on the diaper (which he hasn't worn one in the last couple of days) Andrew was refusing to wear it and started kicking and screaming, "NOOOOOOOOO...NOOOO Diapie"! So I told him that since he continued to go to the bathroom in his pants and not in the toilet he had to wear a diaper. Once he heard that he immediate jumped off the bed and ran into the bathroom, tore off the diaper and went pee pee on the potty for the first time that day.



Since the third day Andrew has done superb and even started going poopy on the potty the Monday following (5th day) and has been going ever since. WOW!! Of course he's had a few accidents here and there but all in all I was so glad I read that book and dedicated the time to potty training him. WHHOO!!! WHHOOO!!