Potty trained

After my bummer of a post yesterday regarding Spencer and his mouth I thought I would report some good news today. I'm going to call it and say that Elliott is potty trained.  I am sure that there will be an accident here and there, but the days of diapers are definitely behind us.  

We first tried potty training back in July when Elliott was 2 years 7 months old.   Spencer potty trained on his own in about 5 minutes when he was 2 years 6 months old, so we thought it would be no big deal.  We were wrong. Elliott had no interest and no ability either.  I gave up after 2 days because it was more mommy training than potty training.  And I refuse to do that. 

We tried again in September, and then October, then in early December and once again in January.  Each time was a disaster.  A disaster because 1) Elliott just wasn't ready and 2) He would have an accident and then we would get pissed (which is not good or helpful) and then give up (which is not good or helpful).   After the January incident I looked at the calendar and came up with a weekend that we weren't going anywhere and that I could be home all day on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday after.  Then I put that weekend on the calendar and started prepping Elliott that the diaper fairy was coming that weekend.  The diaper fairy would take all the diapers to give to babies that needed them and only leave 1 diaper per day for night time. 

Then I actually went on line to read about how to actually potty train a kid, since we never had to do it with Spencer.

The diaper fairy came over night on February 20th.  On the morning of the 21st Elliott threw a huge fit and refused to go on the potty when he woke up.  He peed in his diaper before we could take it off.  After that we pretty much left him naked for 5 days.  We told him that his poop and pee was now his responsibility and that if he made a mess he was responsible for cleaning it up.  The first 3 days we set the timer all day long.  He had to sit on the potty every 20ish minutes if he hadn't peed and every hourish if he had peed.

I also made this big chart and hung it in the hallway by the bathroom.

He got a sticker for just sitting, a Hershey kiss for peeing and a Disney character toy for pooping.

The first day he had one poop accident and one pee accident.  We were prepared.  We stayed calm, put gloves on him and made him clean up after himself.  We repeated that his poop and pee were his responsibility and we were no longer going to clean up after him. 

On day two he had one pee accident.  Unfortunately it was on the couch cushion and we are still dealing with how to completely remove the smell.  Our couch has been missing one cushion for more than a week now.

Day three and day four were perfect.  We even stopped setting the timer.  One day four I emptied the diaper bag and put it in the giveaway pile.  I bought this diaper bag (that's not really a diaper bag) at Target before I was ever even pregnant.  I just loved it.

Now, I loathe it.  I never want to see it again.

I've had the portable changing pad since Spencer was born.  And Megan gave me the wipes container when she had my baby shower for Elliott.

The Hershey's kisses were very, very motivating to Elliott when we started.  After a couple of days he forgot to get one almost every other time.  And now we've run out of them so he's getting an M&M each time.  Once we run out of those we'll just phase out the rewards.

He's also been totally motivated by the toys.  He already had a lot of these before we started, but he just loves them and can't wait to earn them each day.

Michael took the kids to Tucson last weekend and there was one poop accident while they were there.  There have been no more accidents since then.  

We have been telling Elliott for months that once he is potty trained he can start sleeping in the other bed in his room.  He's done so well that we let him last night.  He loved it.

We are letting him sleep for naps in his underwear and he hasn't had a single accident during a nap.  We tell him before each nap that if he pees or poops in his bed he will ruin his stuffed animals and he will have to clean everything up.  It's enough of a worry that if something happened at this point it would be a true accident.  I don't think he would do something on purpose now just to avoid going to the potty.  That was not the case even 3 weeks ago when he would intentionally poop during each nap, I think just to annoy us.

He was still waking up wet in the morning up until about 5 days ago, but for the last 5 days he has been totally dry in the morning.  Yesterday he even called out for me at about 6:30 am that he needed to pee.  He is still sleeping at night in a diaper, so that was big.  I think we're going to let him finish using the rest of the diapers that we have, um, er, that the diaper fairy brings for each night and then we'll try him in underwear at night.

And sometime soon we have to give him the $30 Sophia microphone that he picked and that we promised him for being potty trained.  Because, we're actually there.  He actually did it.  

Thank god.  He can go to preschool now.