momentous

We have big news in the Gottula home.

Yesterday, Wesley got a Thomas the Train. A real Thomas for his wooden railroad.

And what does that mean?

 

That means Wesley is potty-trained.

Oh dear heavens. We started this process probably last July. I think I made this chart last summer. I bought two huge books of Thomas the Train stickers on eBay. The chart is 15 spaces across and I don't know how many rows down. I've been saving the goodie bags he has received at birthday parties, and I've made a "prize box" which I use for strategic motivation. A potty attempt would get one sticker (and one M&M or jelly bean or associated treat), a successful pee would get two, and a poop would get three. A full row gets a prize. The entire chart gets a BIG PRIZE, which he didn't know until recently was a Thomas. That I literally bought a year and a half ago. 

Anyway, the plan was a great one, but everything had to go on hold last summer. He had some unfortunate constipation issues that we tried to deal with on our own starting around August, and then with a professional starting in November. Things were awful so we didn't push the potty at all. When he was finally doing much better, earlier in the spring, we bought some pull-ups and starting asking. For awhile, Wesley would say he would use the potty "when he was four." Like, being three years old meant he wasn't old enough. Ha. (In fact, some of his friends would have birthdays, and he'd be like, "Sara is four? Does that mean she poops in the potty?" And I had to say something like, "um, Sara has been pooping in the potty FOR MONTHS." It was a definitive equation for him.)

It was awful changing big-boy poopy diapers. AND it was awful having two kids in diapers.

Anyway, at the beginning of May (just before he turned four), through some convoluted persuasion, Wesley peed in the potty. It was marvelous and empowering! He realized how easy it was, so we tried underpants for awhile. We had a lot of accidents. I didn't really think we were getting anywhere. We wore pull-ups or diapers outside of the house, always. It was tough.

Some thoughts along the way:

• One of the key things is getting a kid the second he wakes up to sit on the potty. Controlling that "morning pee" is crucial. We always had trouble with that. He'd pee in his pull-up before I could get to him. It only worked if I had to wake him up because we had to be somewhere.
• In the beginning, I just bugged him a lot. "Do you have pee to get out of your body?" All. The. Time. In time, it came that he could cry out, "Mom! I have pee to get out of my body!" Then he'd run to the bathroom. It just happened magically. Thank heavens.
• Pull-ups are basically expensive diapers. Once, at night, I changed him into a pull-up to get ready for bed. As we were reading bedtime stories, I could tell he peed. I got pretty mad at him, since if he had been in underpants he would have told me he had to go. I was so ticked. I told him, "no more pull-ups!" I took off the wet pull-ups, put him in underpants, and sent him to bed. He has not once wet the bed. I am 100% glad I did this. He is dry at night -- and then! He races to the potty the second he wakes up for that morning pee! Woo hoo!
• For awhile, we got no poo in the potty. He'd beg and cry for a diaper, and if we didn't give in, the urge would pass and he wouldn't poo (not healthy), or he'd be such an emotional mess we'd give in and he'd poo in a diaper. Our pediatrician said we had to load him up on laxatives so he physically could not hold it any more. Then, we'd hold out and he'd have to poo in the potty and we'd have a HUGE PARTY and say "wasn't that easy??" That's exactly how it happened. After that, he pooed three more times in the potty, then we had some regression (as in, he said, "I already pooped in the potty. I'll poop in diapers now." Ummm no), until we followed the process again.  We haven't had any more regression.
• When we were well underway, I'd think to myself that we had come so far, but we were still so far away. I saw steps something like this:
• You bug your kid and he pees at home
• You bug your kid and he poos at home
• You bug your kid and he pees in public somewhere
• You bug your kid and he poos in public somewhere
• Finally, your kid starts to tell YOU when he needs to go
• And last, your kid cleans up after himself
• We have done all of these but the very last step. One of my friends says she just isn't worried about her little guy cleaning himself up after #2. Wesley can pull up the potty, go pee, use some TP to clean things up, flush (sometimes FOUR TIMES seriously), and wash his hands without me even knowing what's going on! WOO HOO! I think the rest we will work on later. I suppose I'd rather be in charge for now than risk the messes that accompany self-cleaning.
• Maybe a few weeks ago, Wesley became so adept at peeing on the potty that he'd actually forget to beg for stickers, M&Ms, etc. Then I knew we were really getting somewhere. You want the kid to pee for the sake of peeing, not for M&Ms. I'm really lucky the "reward" aspect just kinda fizzled.
• I'm grateful Wesley is a boy. The first time he peed in public he stood up, and he had never stood up at home before. It became this cool novel thing. He didn't have to sit on the potty, and that was wonderful. Less germies. Those toilets are so darn big. He fell into one once, which was a serious hindrance to potty training. When we finally got our #2 in public, Shane was holding him steady so he could relax. 
• Once at a party, Wesley was having so much fun he wet himself twice. I only had one change of clothes so I borrowed some pants for him from a friend. You gotta stay on it when they're having lots of fun. 

Thanks to Grandma for sending airplane crackers for poop in the potty.... we loved that reward.

 

Now, we are off into the wide blue wonder of being potty trained. We still take a change of clothes with us everywhere we go, and I have a box of pull-ups we didn't open that I am going to RETURN! ($40 please!)

One last thought:

Did I like that this took until he was 4? No. Definitely not. But, we were under the tutelage of a professional to advocated for "potty learning," not "potty training." Basically I see it as this:  potty training is where a parent TRAINS a child, hounds a child, bugs a child, works with a child, etc., essentially taking the responsibility for the process. One could argue this is where power struggles come into play. Potty "learning" is where the parent lets the child lead, the child goes when the child is ready, blah blah, the child takes responsibility for the process. Although I see it as lazy parenting, there are waaaaay less power struggles, because the kid doesn't do what he doesn't want to do, and the mom lets it be.

I wanted to do the first method (it makes more sense to me), but we did the second because we were told to by someone who had some sort of degree. The woman said, "here's how it's gonna go. You'll be nursing your baby one day, and he'll just go into the potty and poop and will say to you, 'Mom, look what I did!'" Um, yeah right. It definitely did NOT go like that, nor would it have ever. Wesley was quite comfortable in diapers. Why poop in the potty? What was his reward?

Regardless of which way was better, Shane and I both were so worried about Wesley's physical health, so we didn't want to push it and the first method seemed less traumatic (and why not? ha).

Eventually though, I bagged the "potty learning" and starting doing some "training." 

Yeah, it was awful. I cried. I yelled. I freaked out when I shouldn't have. I tried really hard to be cool, although now that it's over I am slightly worried I scarred my child in some way. Poop is not something to take lightly. (Luckily, Wesley, like most children, is very forgiving.) I suppose we should count ourselves fortunate we tried a "hybrid" potty training/learning method that played it cool for awhile, then pushed when we saw progress could be had. I have a friend (bless her heart) who had such potty power struggles with her son that he pooped on the floor under the dining room table. Did that ever happen to us? No. Thank goodness. It was lame that Wesley was 4 before he was trained, but it was nice not to have all that heartache. 

Luckily for us, at the moment it seems like our child is well-adjusted and happy and using the potty very well. I hope thing continue positively. This was tough! I love him, I really do. I'm so proud of all that he has achieved so far with this.

Yay!