The Best Things in Life

We started potty-training Tyler the week before he turned 3. He took to it very quickly and easily. Mike thought the best way to approach potty-training was to just go cold-turkey with diapers. No pull-ups, nothing but regular “big boy” underwear. We started on Saturday, January 17. Tyler’s day care teachers had also thought it was a good idea to go cold-turkey and wanted us to bring him to school that following Monday in regular underwear. Well, the weekend went splendidly! Tyler had a few accidents on Saturday morning, but by Sunday, he was going when we asked him to and doing a wonderful job! It’s been 3 weeks and, although he still has an accident now and then, they’ve only happened when he’s with us :)

We did hit a rough patch with pooping, though. When we put Tyler in underwear, he didn’t poop for 3 days. And when he did poop, it was in his underwear. We talked to him and explained to him where his poop was supposed to go. We offered him candy and toys, which he would get if he pooped in the potty. But he told me that he was scared about doing it. So, 3 days later, Tyler pooped in his underwear again. By now, this apparently wasn’t so bad to him. So, he pooped almost every day in his underwear, but only at home (he didn’t poop at all at school). Usually, when he pooped in his underwear, he also peed, so the mess was not easy to clean up. Mike enacted a rule in the house for Tyler: if he pooped or peed in his underwear, then he had to take a shower. Tyler didn’t like that rule too much, especially since the day after the rule was enacted, Tyler took a total of 5 showers.

Well, Tyler must have had an epiphany last weekend, or maybe he overcame his fear of pooping in the potty, because on Saturday, (February 7, 2009) he pooped (A LOT) in his potty! No more cleaning up poopy underwear! I asked him, like I always did, to sit on his potty and try to poop, since I knew it was about that time. I gave him his Leapster handheld game to play, and left him alone. I did hear him grunting a bit, and a few minutes later, Tyler yelled, “Mommy, I pooped!” So, I ran into the bathroom and I could smell it before I saw it…in Tyler’s potty was a pile of poop! I was so excited! I called Mike in to see it and we all did a little poopy dance J

Yesterday, Tyler must have overcome his fear of pooping in the “grown up” toilet, because he pooped there for the first time. Ahhh, even nicer to not have to clean up poop from the potty, either! GO TYLER! Thank you for making potty-training so easy!