Adventures in Potty Training...

So we've been kinda preparing Alan for potty training since Christmas. As gifts, he got an Elmo trainer potty, Elmo Goes Potty DVD, Elmo Potty books and a few other big boy toys. And everyday since then, Alan sits down to watch his DVD and then I will read the book and we talk about going potty. But now that its March and Alan's eighteen months, we have actually started potty training him. Today was first day and I was anticipating it not going over very well, but everything surprisingly went great! Thank goodness!

I've been researching the best way to potty train a toddler since December, and I think I've developed a fool proof way which combines a lot of what people have told me with what I've read in books. My biggest concern was not making it too scary or too forcing it on him, because my son is such a free spirit he tends to revolt a little if I force to do things. So everything I'm doing is not immediate and not too demanding of him (honestly if he doesn't actually use the potty for a week, we wouldn't care). I dunno if anyone is curious exactly what my plan is, but here it is:

We're starting out only using the potty at home, every half an hour. We ask him if he needs to go, take him to the potty, strip him down, and set him on it for about five minutes. Once he gets used to that (after a week or two) we'll try using the potty outside of the house, still wearing diapers though. And after a week or so of that, we will put him in underwear while we're at home, putting him on the potty now every fifteen to twenty minutes. Hopefully he will not want to wet his underwear, and he will start to tell us when he has to go potty. When he can recognize that he has to go potty, we will try wearing underwear to Child Watch first. This will allow us to try out using the potty with underwear outside of the house without having too much of a catastrophe lol. I'm so thankful I work there. :) And as soon as we accomplish wearing underwear for the whole three hours with no wetting, we will try wearing them for a whole day! :D I estimate this whole thing to take us only until late May, early June. How's that for a fast potty training? :)

Today went well for us too. Alan woke up at 8, and as soon as he was finished with breakfast we stuck him on the potty. He didn't mind sitting on it naked at first, then he got really angry when he realized that he wasn't allowed to leave the potty naked lol. Silly boy. :) The next few times went a lot better however, and he even peed a little one of the times! Then he went up for his lunch of turkey, carrots, peaches, cheese and apple juice. He did have a BM while he was up there, but he knew that he had and became uncomfortable! We had to change him in the middle of lunch! That's some progress! The last time we put him on the potty before he went down for his nap, he peed a whole bunch and it scared him lol! So adorable! :) All in all today, he sat on the potty nine times and peed pretty much twice! Go big boy, go!

I have a feeling that Alan will just breeze through my potty training plan, only because he is so smart! He amazes me everyday with everything new he learns! Tonight, when I got off work and went to my parent's to pick up Alan, I came in to find Uncle Kalvin and Alan tying up Grandpa Kevin, train robber style. :D Alan was actually helping Uncle Kalvin too, he wasn't just standing there! And he kept repeating everything Uncle Kalvin would say to Grandpa lol. What a funny little smart guy I have!! Tomorrow he has his second art class with Dad and me lol, I am so excited! We are learning about Ireland and St. Patrick's Day this week so we are making 3D shamrocks, shamrock rainbow pictures, and drawing leprechans. It should be lots of fun!!!

Hope everyone else had as good of a Monday as I did! :) I love my family and I love my life!