July 14, 2015

two months into potty training

Please don't tell me about how your 2 year old girl trained herself without an accident. Boys don't just take longer; they are perfectly content to wallow in their own filth until you continually lie to them about diapers not being available in their size. Potty training in a week? My ass.

Here's what our potty training life looks like (because yes, our lives consist of feeding and potty training our son to reach the holy grail of self-sufficiency):
  • Get up in the morning and remove the overnight pull-up.
  • Note: said pull-up may be filled to overflowing with piss, or might be dry. Also, if the pull-up is dry, there might be a really lazy one-hour gap between waking up and removing the pull-up.
  • Encourage the first potty.
  • Take note every time the child grabs himself, and ask if he needs to go.
  • Witness the child run to the bathroom when he starts to have an accident.
  • Give two treats for #2, and one for #1. Reinforce this guideline every time. Every. Time.
  • Occasionally forget to give treats. Occasionally get reminded by the child to give treats.
Okay, so I would say he's about 80% trained. Most of the time he avoids accidents, but I am learning to let him accept the responsibility instead of freaking out when he has an accident. I usually start getting nervous if it's been more than an hour or so since he went last, and if he says he doesn't need to go, then I remind him to listen to his body and go before he really really has to. I think this is starting to sink in.

I still consider overnight a separate thing, though my husband and I agree now that we need to tackle this next. We've been pretty lazy about getting that overnight pull-up off of him first thing when he wakes up, but I guess that's what we need to do. I say "guess" because nobody -- nobody! -- tells you how to complete the overnight potty training. Wake him up at 2 a.m. to go? No freaking thank you. Control his liquid intake in the evening? Absolutely. Beyond that, we can only assume the rule is to remind our son the importance of going first thing in the morning while actually making him do it.