It's Potty Time!

Thursday was my last day of work until the end of July. Friday started Potty Time! The last time we tried the "Cold Turkey Underwear Method" was last July, and it was an epic failure. This time we were much more hopeful because Oliver has been talking about the potty and telling us after he went in his diaper quite frequently. Ready or not, here we went!

We started out the day out with a conversation about diapers being for babies over Oliver's normal breakfast of oatmeal. While Brent finished up the conversation, I covered Oliver's floor with towels so that we did not ruin the carpet. Then we had a Diaper Party. We took all of the diapers out of the basket on his changing table and had him throw them in the trashcan. Then we filled the basket with fresh, clean underwear, including Thomas and Elmo undies. We turned on music and even did a dance! Next we showed Oliver the potty treats available for when he made success. The stickers and lollipops are for pooping in the potty. Pretzel M&Ms (they have a little less sugar) are for every time he pees. 

Then the games began. Within an hour Brent had taken over completely because I quickly found that Oliver and I butt heads in stressful situations due to similar personalities. I did more "behind the scenes" work while Brent fought on the battlefield. His two pieces of advice to Oliver were,"1. Never touch another man's light saber. 2. Don't cross the streams." (Movie references to StarWars and Ghostbusters) The first big obstacle was that somewhere over the past couple of weeks Oliver picked up the phrase, "I can't!" When he started with this early in the morning, Brent and I looked at each other in confusion, knowing it had not come from us, then had long conversations with Oliver where we repeated the phrase "We can do this!" The other major obstacle was convincing him to sit on the potty because we'd been letting him stand to pee. Brent finally found success in both of these areas. So every 10-15 minutes, according to a set timer, Oliver visited the bathroom. Right before dinner, Oliver looked at me, after a successful pee, and said, "Mommy! We can do this!" By bed time we had done two loads of laundry that included at least 4 towels and 10 pair of underwear and watched "Elmo's Potty Time" twice. And just to repeat, Brent did most of the work. Then he was amazing enough to let me go to dinner with a friend! I have an amazing husband! 

Day 2. The morning started out at 4:30 with a wet bed and crying child, but successful pee in the potty. After cleaning up and putting new sheets on the bed, we all went back to sleep for about 2 hours until the next bed-wetting accident. The first "awake" accident happened shortly after breakfast, but Oliver went to the bathroom without hesitation to finish off what he'd started. Though we have still not had a successful bowel movement in the potty, the early morning pee was the only full-on accident of the day. Things really started looking up after nap time when he started telling us when he had to pee on his own. Another motivation might be Potty Pirates, which to be honest is more for Brent and I than Oliver because we are tired of Elmo Potty Time! Twice, while outside playing, he peed a little in his underwear, stopped playing to tell me he needed to go potty, then came in and finished off his work. Three times already tonight he has gotten out of bed to go without any prompting at all and was successful all three times. He does enjoy the M&Ms, which may be the motivation. But, hopefully, he's starting to get it! Maybe by mid-week we can try out going somewhere if things continue the way they are going.