Potty Training, Part 1

I've been meaning to write about potty training Gabe and Kaylee for the benefit of my friends who have potty training in their future.  Okay, at long last, here it is.  Part one: how we went about potty training Gabe, our three-year-old.

We started potty training for real right around Gabe's third birthday.  Prior to that, we had occasionally encouraged Gabe to sit on the toddler potty, or on the big potty using a toddler seat.  We even had successes.  But Gabe just wasn't really interested yet, and we didn't want to pressure him.

Right around his third birthday, Gabe started habitually peeing on the bathmat after taking a shower.  Holy cow, I thought, he's doing it on purpose.  He's ready.

So we picked up some pull-up diapers, and encouraged Gabe to sit on the potty.  The results were mixed.  We changed a lot of poopy pull-ups.

Then serendipity!  We were picking up diapers at the store and Gabe spied underwear.  Underwear with Cars-the-movie characters!  Wow, did he ever want those undies!  So we took home a pack and that was it for the daytime diapers.

Soggy pants ensued.  I proceeded for a short while on the guess that wet pants would be good encouragement to Gabe to pay attention and get himself to the potty when he felt the urge.  It did work, some of the time.  I learned that wet pants were no problem - just change them, and do a lot of laundry.  I learned that in most cases, underwear are a reasonable containment unit for poop, should accidents happen.  I also learned not to strip poopy undies off of a child anywhere but the bathtub.  Also, a shower on a hose is an invaluable tool.  If you have potty training in your future, get one!  You don't even need to have a plumber install it.

This all happened too quickly to look into training pants.  Anyway, shortly after underwear became the "in" thing, I declared it Movie Week at Casa Clay.  Gabe got to watch non-stop movies with the toddler potty right there in the room with him, so that he could RUN to it when he needed to go.

We did have the added complication of daycare twice a week, and a bout of some minor illness, but if I remember correctly, it was Gabe being home sick one day that lead to Movie Week.  And then I think I was just so focused on the potty training that I forgot to take him to daycare the second time that week.

Kaylee's infant potty training got largely neglected that week, and by the end of it I was thoroughly sick of dealing with isolation and poop.  But after a week, Gabe was reliably sitting on the potty, and I was feeling ready to venture out.

Our first outings were to coffee shops with known, convenient restrooms.  This was followed by picnics at which I brought along the toddler potty, plus wipes and gallon-sized ziploc baggies.  This arrangement had a big yuck factor, but had a huge convenience factor.  On the down side, Gabe once ended up using the potty on a sidewalk in downtown Franklin, right in front of a memorial to the Emancipation Proclamation.  I was mortified that someone would think we were committing some sort of unsanitary commentary.

After the Week of Movies, Gabe was officially potty-trained during the day.  I was feeling so good about things that I did away with night-time diapering, and toughed it out through a few nights of soggy beds.  Very quickly, Gabe started waking up dry.

Aside from an occasional wet bed, Gabe was potty trained!  But stay tuned for the regression story. . .