Potty Training...

Austin is (Hopefully) finally potty trained.

Potty training is one of (so far) the most frustrating things to have to do with raising children, well my child anyways. I have been trying to potty train Austin for almost a year, on and off, now. I have tried everything from leaving him naked running around the house to asking him every 20 minutes if he has to go potty to now where I just quite cold turkey and he is not allowed to wear diapers anymore (not even pull ups) except at night time only. It took a lot out of me over the past few months trying to figure out why he wouldn't use the potty. I didn't understand why he was being so difficult and I came to every conclusion possible. I finally figured it out! I think that what I did would not work with every child, just mine (well maybe others). I think that my stuborn side rubbed off on him and he was ttrying to see how far he could push me! Well he pushed me to figure out how to potty train him once and for all.

Last fall (I believe) when Austin was just about 3 I decided to try to actively start potty training him. I started out by leaving him naked around the house. It started to work for the first few days. He never peed on the floor and always went to the potty when he had to go. I would put him in a pull up when we went somewhere and at nap time. He still wore diapers at bed time. For a couple of weeks I thought it was working. Going to the store he would sometimes ask to go to the potty and sometimes he wouldn't. At nap time he would not ask to go to the potty ever and he would always wake up with a dirty diaper. I figured that maybe that was ok and at least during his awake time he was going (sometimes). And then one day everything went backwards...He peed on the floor. I thought it would happen just the once and then it kept happening, so we went back to full time diapers.

A few months went by and we tried again. Sometimes I would put him in underwear, sometimes I would leave him in a diaper and sometimes I would leave him naked. Nothing seemed to be fully working. It would only seem to work when we were at home. At that point I kind of gave up on the whole thing even though I knew Austin was smart and he knew when he had to go pee and poop.

I started getting super annoyed with changing austins bum and asked him why he can't just go in the potty. He would always say he didn't want to. So I came to the conclusion that he was just lazy.

During being pregnant every once in a while you have a melt down. Well I had one of those a couple weeks ago about Austin. About him not being potty trained, never listening to me and just being a 3 year old boy. So I searched on the internet hoping for some answers and help. Well I found it, with some of my own ideas combined.

I decided to make Austin quite diapers cold turkey. The website I read this on made a lot of sense in that if you keep going back and forth between not wearing diapers and wearing them it confuses them and they dont want to learn. Well with Austin, he knew what he was supposed to do he just didn't want to. So I told him no more diapers except at bed time, even naps were no diapers. He wasn't happy with this but he did it. There were two times where I wasn't sure what to do but apparently what I did I was right. Once he was sent to his room for doing something bad and he decided to pee his pants. I knew that he had done this on purpose so I made him stay in his peed in pants. That was his punishment for not telling me he had to go pee, he had to stay in his wet pants. Now I only made him stay in them for about 10 minutes. The other time he peed in his pants during his nap. Now he was still awake and he did it on purpose because he wanted out of his bed. Well little did he know I made him stay in his wet pants and made him have a nap. I know that you are all thinking that I am cruel for doing this, but it worked. He hasn't done that since and he has told me if he has to go. He is smart and knows that I can hear him when he is in bed (yes I still have a monitor in his room and his door has a child thing on it because he comes out of his room all the time unless the door thing is on and he can't get out). He hasn't had an accident since last Sunday (which that accident was on purpose) and last saturday we spent almost the entire day at a friends house and peed in their potty 3 times without me asking if he had to go, he just went!! I am so happy about his progress and I firmly believe I could take him any where and he would not have an accident! I am so proud of both of us for sticking to it. I may have made some mistakes along the way but that is part of being a parent. Now onto other things, potty training Dalyce, she is eager to learn and nighttime training with Austin, Oh and having another baby!!!