Potty Trained

I think it is safe to say that Alyce is potty trained.  Aside from staying dry which is the technical definition she has taken ownership of her own bodily functions.  When we first started training we'd ask Alyce every half an hour or so if she needed to use the restroom.  If we forgot to ask the chances of her having an accident increased.  In my opinion if you have to badger your child for potty success it is a hollow victory.  Alyce has moved passed that.  She could be sitting playing with toys or outside playing and stops what she is doing, says she has to go potty, walks into the bathroom, and does her business.  All of that without any input or action from Mom or myself.  Depending on the outfit she is wearing she can into and out of her clothes as necessary.  Mom has also gotten her trained to wash her hands every time so we don't even have to remind her of that.

It has been a long road but I can't really say it has been a hard one.  We've worked on it off and on for maybe a year but like most people said it really depends on when the kid is ready and not the parent.  We could have sped up the process by getting Alyce in daycare before school or using cloth based diapers instead of disposable.  But if she would have been trained a 2 1/2 but still required me to drop what I was doing to help undress her I don't think I would have considered that potty trained.

Mom and I couldn't be prouder of her; so proud I'm telling just about anyone who has kids and would appreciate the accomplishment.  Their comments are that it only gets better from here on out.  I can't wait until both kids are trained and we can finally keep the diaper bag at home.

Probationally Potty Trained

I'm probably jinxing myself even writing this but I'm thinking Alyce may be potty trained; at least probationally.  In the past few weeks things have been clicking with Alyce and using the toilet.  It started off gradually with saying she needed to go and doing her business without Mom and I saying anything but still having a few accidents to Alyce going full days on a single diaper.  Starting last Wednesday Alyce hasn't soiled a single diaper.  That includes staying clean and dry during quiet time naps, overnight, and a trip to Six Flags.

The driving force behind Alyce becoming toilet trained is two fold.  At home Alyce has said she's wanting to go to dance class and we laid out the carrot that she could go once she didn't have an accident for a whole week and wearing big girl underwear pants.  The other force is peer pressure.  A few girls at her school are toilet trained and I believe there is a set time where all the kids go to use the restroom.  I'm thinking that Alyce is watching the other kids go to the bathroom and she wants to be part of that.  I was taught in high school that peer pressure was a bad thing but I think peer pressure has been very important in getting Alyce to realize that being potty trained is a good thing.

So if we make it to Wednesday Alyce will be able to go to dance class?  Well not exactly.  Alyce has been doing great on the potty however, she is still weary of giving up her beloved "diiipers".  We ask her if she wants to wear big girl underwear pants and her reply is "not yet".  Last night we told Alyce that she was going to be wearing big girl underwear pants to school today to warn her of the impending change.  And talking to Mom it didn't seem as if she put up any fight.  I can't wait to hear how she has done.  Update:  I just heard from Mom that Alyce didn't have any accidents at school today!  I think that is cause for celebration; ice cream tonight!

We are kind of pushing the toilet training now because pretty soon (Thursday) her school is over for the summer and we lose that driving force called conformity.  I'm knocking on wood in hopes that we can close the diapers chapter on the book that is Alyce's life.

Potty Success From Nowhere

Coming completely out of left field we had some potty success yesterday.  When I got home from work I was greeted by my little girl and she was all hyped up I guess from school.  At one point she was in the bathroom playing around with a box of Princess Band Aids.  I asked her if she needed to use the bathroom and like normal her response was a "no".  After a few minutes she closed the door to the bathroom which isn't that unusual.

I checked on her to see what she was getting in to and to my surprise there was my little girl pants and diaper at her ankles putting her potty seat on the toilet.  After that she moved her bench into position to get up on the toilet.  At that point she discovered she had put the cart before the horse because she wasn't able to get a foot on the bench because her pants were at her ankles.  I told her to pull them up so she could step up and sure enough she did.  At this point Alyce was all about her "privacy" and wanted me to close the door.  Less than a minute later Alyce has taken care of business.  I thought I could go back into bathroom at this point to praise her potty success but I would be wrong.  Alyce still wanted her privacy while she was pulling up her pants and diaper.  She moved her bench over to the sink, washed her hands with soap, and dried them with a towel all by herself.  Finally she emerged from the bathroom having done all the potty stuff "by herself" to mountains of praise and candy from Mom and myself.

We thought we were on to something but we were wrong.  Later that night Alyce did her business in her diaper.  She is so close to being potty trained.  She is physically ready just not mentally.  You aren't supposed to force a kid to do this but how do you get them to want to?  It seems like Alyce only wants to do it when she wants to.  Oh well.  I'm sure one day she'll just start doing it.

Potty Training: Update

Mom and I decided that we are going to postpone potty training for a while.  The reason is that we don't think Alyce is ready for yet.  Physically she is capable of controlling herself to stay dry for hours on end however, she isn't telling us when she needs to go.  This presents the situation where Mom and I have to ask her if needs to go where the response is always "no".  If we think that in fact she does we can cajole her into sitting on the toilet and hopefully something will happen.  If it does she was very proud of herself and would get a prize but that success never would carry on to the next time she had to go.

We are suspending the training because cajoling seemed to be losing its effectiveness and we were resorting to having to force Alyce to sit on the potty.  It came to a head a few days ago when Mom was getting Alyce into her underwear in the morning and Alyce said she didn't want to wear them anymore.  I took it as a sign that forcing toilet training was stressing her out.  From all that we've read forcing this process is counterproductive and her resisting is a sign she isn't ready.  That being said we can't continue to keep her in diapers because why would she want to leave them?  If she wears those she can play for as long as she wants and it only take 30 seconds to switch her out vs the 3 minutes it takes in the bathroom.  So we are going to look for some form of training pants solution that will make her uncomfortable in diapers but not run through to her clothing.  We are hoping that eventually she will say she has to go before she does and we can get her to the toilet in time.

I can't place all of the blame on Alyce though.  Mom and I don't really have much of a clue on what we are doing.  Most of the things we've read include throwing parties and the like to get kids excited about ditching diapers or using dolls to explain the process.  But what happens when the party is over and your child knows how to use a potty but refuses to do so?

Potty Training

Last weekend Mom, Alyce, and I started on the path to potty training.  This is something we've meant to do for months and months but kept finding reasons for putting it off.  We thought about it as early as last March but with the birth of her brother Luke Alyce would probably regress and we wouldn't have the time to reinforce the training.  This fall would have been a great time to attempt it coinciding with her 3rd birthday, however I started my massive retaining wall project and didn't have the time to devote.  That brings us Christmas break.  We decided to wait until the new year so that all of the Christmas festivities had passed and we could focus 100% our attention on getting Alyce out of diapers.

Our plan of attack isn't grand on complicated.  Alyce has been going for long periods staying dry in her diapers and on occasion has used the potty repeatedly through a day.  When that would happen we thought we were on to something however, the next day all interest would disappear.  We decided that on Jan 1 we would take off the daytime diapers for good and put her in underwear.  We thought a quick switch would eliminate confusion and get her to focus on the new task at hand.

The experience so far has been good but not great.  Alyce has been using the potty fairly regularly and in the past three days has only had two accidents.  The biggest problem is that even though she is holding it in very well she either doesn't recognize that it is time to go or doesn't want to tell us she has to.  This ended up with Mom and I having to ask her on regular intervals if she has to go with her saying no 90% of the time even though she really did need to.  This lead Mom and I to change tactics by saying it was time to use the potty at regular intervals rather than asking repeatedly.  We are hoping that eventually this will change and she will take some ownership of her bodily functions.  If it doesn't we might have to revert to one final measure.

Before we started training, Alyce had the most success at recognizing when she had to go when she wasn't wearing any diaper and her bottom was bare.  Clothing changes and going to bed at night being the most common times.  If we were to change her clothes and her diaper was still dry if we left her half naked for a minute she would run into the bathroom and hop right on.  Yesterday Mom and I were both home all day and we decided to give the same thing a shot.  We were going to keep Alyce naked from the waist down to see if she would do things on her own.  Things didn't work out as planned.  Alyce went 4 hours without doing anything and when we wanted to get some pants on her (she was getting chapped cheeks) she didn't want to wear anything underwear or otherwise.

Sunday night we did have one great success.  Before we were heading out to Grams's and Papa's for dinner Alyce was upstairs with Mom on the potty.  Luke woke up during the process and Mom left Alyce to her own devices to handle Luke.  While alone Alyce eliminated all bodily wastes and was ecstatic about it.  She stood up when finished, looked at what she had done, and exclaimed "there are rocks in the potty!".  Mom and I heaped tons of praise on her and she was beaming.  She started running around the upstairs saying out loud that she went pee and poop on the potty!  She even ran into Luke's room where Luke was on the floor and told him what she had just done.  When that died down Alyce said to me that she was proud of herself.  I told her that I was proud of her too and gave her a big hug.

I'm pretty sure we've laid the groundwork necessary to potty train.  I'm interested to see how she does at school tomorrow where she won't have Mom or myself there to get her to pause for a few minutes to do her business.  They've taught kids of potty training age there for a long time and I bet they have a process that works for them.

Dry Day

Yesterday was a good day for Alyce.  She went the entire day without getting a single diaper wet.  It started in the morning when she woke up with a dry diaper.  We got her on the potty without accident and she did her business.  Before I left with the kids to go see my mom Alyce did her business on the potty again.  While out at my mothers Alyce used the potty two more times.

All of this is a great indicator of things to come.  I'm thinking Alyce has reached the point where she is ready to begin potty training and her interest in using the potty is returning.  Now Mom and I need to devote a week or so to make it happen.  It is easy to stay complacent since Alyce only needs 3 or 4 diapers a day and changes take less than a minute.  Once we invested the time the dividends will be worth it.

Underwear Pants

Mom and I are slowly progressing towards moving Alyce out of diapers and onto the potty.  One item we have been using as a carrot to dangle in front of her is big girl underwear or as Alyce likes to call them "underwear pants".  We've told Alyce that if she starts to use the potty she can wear them.  Last week while Mom and the kids were on vacation Alyce had a pretty good run of potty use.  On that note I decided to give Alyce a shot at wearing them up until bedtime.

We told her that once she had them on she needed to keep them clean and dry.  Clean and dry is term from one of her books about transitioning to the potty.  Well I think I might have made a mental case of her.  Once she had them on she kept saying "got to keep them clean and dry" in an obsessive compulsive sort of way.  Further more she kept going into the bathroom, pulling down her underwear pants, sitting down, getting back up, pulling them back up and then exiting the bathroom.  She repeated this process multiple times.  I think she thought the whole thing was pretty cool and wanted to try things out the way adults do it.  We didn't have any accidents but she only had them on for 30 minutes so there wasn't much chance for failure.  This was more of a test than any line in the sand.  I hope that a glimpse at a world without diapers provides something for Alyce to strive toward.

Having Fun in San Antonio

Mom and kids have been away from home for almost a week now.  Judging by reports from Mom it sounds like they are having fun. The first leg of the trip took them to Eureka springs where Mom stayed by herself with the kids while Grams and PaPa stayed at a B&B.  This was Alyce's first trip to a hotel in which she didn't sleep in a Pack-n-Play.  Apparently it went ok with Alyce almost falling off the bed a few times.  Apparently she likes to move around a lot at night and not having the railing on the bed can be dangerous.  This was the first time in a long time Mom slept in the same room as Luke and apparently he is a noisy sleeper.  I don't think it was loud enough to keep Mom awake but she did note it.  After Eureka Springs they journeyed to San Antonio over the course of 8 hours.  It sounds like the kids managed the trip pretty well with Alyce and Luke taking naps during the trip.

Something pretty cool has happened while they are gone.  Alyce started to want to use the potty.  Up to this point we have had to ask her if she needed to go and usually her response would be no.  Sometimes the stars would align and she would actually produce.  As of late she would get right down to business when Mom would take her to the bathroom.  That is a big help since waiting 5 minutes on the potty is really boring.  My apologies if this is too graphic but one time after making a movement Alyce commented that there were rocks in the potty.

Potty Training Continues

We have a big announcement in the world of potty training. Alyce has used the potty! And for real this time. Check this older post if you want some history about that.

Yesterday we were playing with Alyce and some of her new toys when Alyce said out of the blue she needed to go. We had bought a little booster ring for the toilet the day before so we decided that now was good as time as any to try and get Alyce on the toilet. We took down her overalls and diaper and plopped her onto the toilet. After 5 minutes of trying we had nothing to show for the effort. We praised her for going to the effort and moved on with the day thinking nothing more of it.

Later on when we got back from dinner we asked Alyce if she needed to use the potty. She nodded yes and we were off to give the potty another shot. We got her up where she needed to be and sure enough a few seconds later we were treated to the sounds of tinkling water. Mom and I could hardly believe it. I don't think Alyce could believe it either as she kept looking down trying to see what was going on.

Obviously this is only the first steps towards potty independence but what a great base to build upon. I guess next time we buy some diapers we will want to get the pull up kind. Putting on and taking off a conventional diaper on a standing kid is for the birds.

Big News in Potty Training

A big milestone has been hit tonight. Alyce used a potty. It was more by accident then us starting training. She is only 20 months old, not like she is ready for that stuff yet. Anyway, we were giving her a bath tonight and right as we were finishing up we got that grunt. Any parent out there knows 'that' grunt. Well I wasn't going to let her do her business in the tub, and I don't think I was going to make it to a diaper so I plopped her on the toilet and well she did her business. WooHoo big girl potty time! I can't really say that this is the first in a string of toilet episodes, but it makes for a nice first step.