Potty Training for Over a Year

This is by no means a tutorial on potty training, the title should tell you that much. But if I had one tip for other mothers out there, it would be to get serious about potty training when you're 9 months pregnant. This may seem counterintuitive due to the exhaustion and all the necessary bending over, but if you're both having accidents together it sure helps bond you through the process. :)

When I posted the picture below in Isaiah's 9-month blog entry over a year ago, I was hoping to follow-up with some thoughts on how Elimination Communication had turned into Early Potty Training, but I'm not sure that was really our case.

At about 18-months of age, he was almost using the potty exclusively for a bit, and telling me with a nose scrunch when he needed to go (he made this up based on me sniffing his diaper to see if he was dirty.) But then we traveled a lot for my CVM Region Rep role and got him out of his routine, plus he got a cold, making the sniffing/nose scrunching more difficult.

REGRESSION IS REAL, folks! I didn't believe kids would really just lose a skill they had learned, but I'm a believer now! As we continued to passively train him by putting him on the potty after he woke up and when he looked like he needed to go, it didn't really lead to him holding it or giving me warnings like before, so I decided to opt for active potty training.

First, he picked out his Big Boy underwear. He chose fish, or as he calls them, in possibly the world's cutest mispronunciation, "Fooosh."

He liked them so much that he insisted on taking them out of the package in the store.

Deciding between his 7 designs was too much work so he often wanted to wear more

than one.

I had seen Martin Luther King Day weekend coming up and had noticed our schedule was unusually clear, so I asked Jon if he'd help me use those 3 days to potty train Isaiah before the new baby comes (the laundry of 2 littles in cloth diapers sounds overwhelming.) He reminded me he had to work on the car, but other than that he could help. Jon's morning with the car, ended up being the majority of the three days, to no avail. While I was sequestered in the house staring at our toddler and wondering when I was going to have to scurry him to the potty.

We did all the normal things you read about in the 3-day intense potty training methods, except for use a timer. We picked up some toddler books at the library on underpants and big boy potties (he loves books), added some juice to his water to entice him to drink more, and got some motivating treats for him. I stopped putting him in onesie style shirts and picked out all the tops that don't snap at the bottom, which was a small selection as I've loved onesies dearly since he was born, but they don't lend themselves well to quick potty trips. I also moved a bunch of his pants, socks, and all his underwear downstairs to the level with hardwood, where we camped out the whole weekend, to avoid accidents on the carpet, and unnecessary trips up the stairs for my hugely pregnant self. Seriously, if I'm pregnant much longer Jon's going to need a three day weekend to install an elevator.

On Day 2 or 3, I opted to ditch the pants and underpants until further notice. We started a fire in the fireplace to keep warm and let him run around commando to cut down on laundry.

He didn't mind a bit running around in half his birthday suit, but his big sister may have been a little traumatized by all the nudity.

His biggest motivators were: flushing the toilet, candy corn (beating out M&Ms, fruit snacks, and chocolate covered raisins), and marking a little chart in one of his potty training books. This last one unfortunately, has confused him about when it's okay to write in books. Ugh!

During his nap I was putting him in a cloth diaper, because the only thing harder than walking up the stairs this pregnant is changing crib sheets! On Day 4 an hour into his nap, I heard him say "Wet" (his word to tell me he needs to go) through the monitor, so I went to get him, but found he had taken off his velcro diaper and peed in the crib. At least he knew he wasn't supposed to go in his clothes... Velcro was a rookie mistake on my part.

Since we didn't do the strict timer method (putting him on the potty like every 10 minutes) because... sanity, it's taken more than 3 days, but sanity is worth it. We're now about a week in, he turned 23-months old today, and he's nearly accident free.  He even took his nap in his underpants today! Praise the Lord.

Here's to praying he doesn't regress again when the baby comes, but fully expecting it's likely. Also, are we the first parents on Earth to potty train our toddler before sleep training him? 

"Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it." - Proverbs 22:6