This weekend Ant had some potty training regression.  On Sunday he had 4 accidents!  He peed his pants at church, while playing at the mall (about 20mins after using the potty), on the way home in the car, and then at dinner.  By the end of the day I was at my wits end and was ready to put him in a pull-up just for my sanity.  Monday at daycare was just as bad because he peed his pants twice and then had an accident at home.

The most interesting thing was on Saturday evening he was AWESOME! We were at a minor league baseball game because my students sang the National Anthem.  He went almost 2 hours without using the potty and kept his trainer dry the entire evening!

Monday I resolved to start using a sticker chart to encourage dry days.  We opted to give him a sticker for a dry day at daycare and then another one if he kept dry for the evening also. Evenings have been a little bit of an issue the last week.  Well, on Tuesday Ant didn’t have a dry day at daycare but he was dry Tuesday evening.  Before going to bed we put our first sticker on his sticker chart (he needs 10 for a special treat of going out to ice cream).

Today was AMAZING!  At daycare Ant was dry all day and he even told them when he needed to go potty and poop.  Then he also had a dry afternoon.  It is amazing how quickly his regression has turned around.  We are now 3 stickers to our 10 sticker goal.  I think I am looking forward to our special ice cream treat!!!

We are currently about a week into the potty training process. I will be post a recount of our experience.  We originally went into this experience thinking Ant would be completely potty trained in just a few days.  Yes, he does great but for us it has taken longer then a few days.

The week before Easter was my Spring Break (a perk of being a teacher).  DH had the bright idea of potty training some time during my 10 days off.  We opted for Easter weekend.  The Potty training 101 start Friday and I went back to work the following Tuesday.  We had 4 day and hopefully less to get Ant potty trained.

Prior to starting the potty training process, I tried to do a little research on how to best potty train and if he was even ready to potty train.  According to some websites he was ready but others didn’t thinks so.  We opted to start with my MIL’s advice of spending the entire day bare bottom (just Ant) exploring how his body worked.  The plan was to eat chips and drink juice to promote more potty practice.  I suggest if you try this find a non-carpeted surface that is easily cleaned.  There is a lot of cleaning up pee and poop in your future.

Day 1:  The morning started off great and Ant peed in the potty when he first woke up and then we went down stairs for breakfast.  We opted for a normal breakfast and then started chips and juice around 10am.  During breakfast Ant says to me, “Mama have to poop.”  I of course rush him to the potty and he proceeds to poop and pee!  Yeah Ant!  Also a little while later we make it to the potty.  The day was starting off great.  The rest of the morning was more pee filled.  Later in the morning he peed in the middle of the kitchen floor and afterwards I talked with Ant about how that felt.  Also, that if he has that feeling he should tell me and he can go sit on the potty.  A few more accidents happened and we made the potty at least one more time.  The morning was 50% of the pees and poop were in the potty.  The rest was on the kitchen floor.

During his nap he wore a diaper.

While Ant napped I did a little more research and came across this website: How to Potty Train in 2 days.  Her big thing was to put your child on the potty every 10mins all day long.  This is A LOT of work but I figure lets give it a shot.

After Ant’s nap I placed him on the potty every 10mins.  He didn’t mind sitting on the potty every 10mins to much and he realized quickly if he didn’t have to pee that he was done and wanted to go back to playing.  If you use this system don’t stray from the 10mins.  The one time I went longer Ant peed on the floor (of course).

By the end of the day I felt exhausted but successful.  I was looking forward to another day and to see how much he retained from the previous day.

To be continued…