Potty update

Warning: This is a post about all things relating to potty training, thus the title.

We have had a couple of potty options for Charlie for awhile now. He has never shown much interest & as much as I wanted him to potty train, I knew that I needed to wait until he was ready & had a feeling he would catch on quickly once he made up his mind. We had a little chair & a ring for the big toilet but neither seemed to keep him entertained for very long. Then, after 2 separate instances of going on the short potty at the mall, I thought maybe we needed to look for a more realistic short potty. Right after that we acquired a realistic short potty from a man at Goodwill when they would not accept his donation. Within minutes of bringing it into our house, Charlie sat down and went on it. Over the next couple of weeks we had it in the bathroom but he never showed much interest. Last Sunday was the first time he made a connection between getting a reward (chocolate chips) for going. I knew he had control when he would squeeze out a few drops for chips & then say, "Me go potty me get more chips? OK!" and repeat over and over. He used the potty several times that day but during the week didn't care too much about it.

Everything changed Friday morning when he found a pair of underwear and decided he was wearing them to daycare. There was no changing his mind so I took him & clean clothes & apologized to her as I figured he'd be wet right away. Well, he stayed dry & used the potty all day at daycare and again when we got home! Saturday morning he had several big successes. When he's not in a familiar environment he doesn't do quite as well but Sunday he did great at home too. (Also, he has had several #2 successes which is something I was worried about. He gets really really excited when he does that.) He's also seemed to have already forgotten about being rewarded so we are just going with lots of praise & high fives for now. He went to daycare in underwear again Monday (with a diaper cover over just in case) but he does not want to get Thomas/Cars wet. His diaper was wet this morning but he sat down on the potty right away & definitely had a full bladder. Night time training might be a ways off (we have to cut him off of his gallon of liquids before bed) but so far we are very pleased with how well he is doing. 2 times of missing the potty at home/daycare over 4+ days after pretty much not caring at all is something to celebrate!

Here's to hoping it continues!