Waste Management

Potty training has officially begun! This past Wednesday, Ryan agreed to wear "big boy pants" instead of his regular diapers. When I presented them to him as "underwear," he adamantly refused to put them on or participate in potty training. However, when I called them "special diapers" or "big boy pants" he enthusiastically agreed to give them a try.

Potty Training Plan: Shamelessly (and based on the advice of other moms who have gone before me), I have decided to pander to Ryan's sweet tooth to increase the chances of potty training success and to maintain his excitement and willingness to participate. A mom from one of the moms groups that I belong to recently potty trained her 3-year-old son and she shared some helpful tips and lessons learned from her experience. Following her suggestions, I check Ryan's training pants every 15-20 minutes during the day to see if he's gone to the bathroom. If is pants are dry, I reward him with a few M&Ms or miniature marshmallows. In addition, every time he goes to the bathroom on the potty - either at my urging or by his own request - he is also rewarded with a few M&Ms or marshmallows and stickers.

Progress to Date: The first day was a success - much to my surprise, Ryan pee-peed and poo-pooed on the potty! After each successful trip to the potty, we'd celebrate with the "Pee-pee on the potty" song, clapping, high-fives, lots of praise, stickers, and candy. With all the extra attention, I'm surprised Ryan doesn't insist on going to the bathroom every 5 minutes! Apparently, he's modest about his bathroom habits though because on the first day he demanded that I leave the bathroom and close the door behind me. He assured me that he'd call me when he was done. After a minute or two, I heard him yell, "Mommy, me done, come in here now." When I walked into the bathroom he was wiping himself with a wad of toilet paper that was at least half of the roll and he pointed excitedly into the toilet and exclaimed, "Look, Mommy, one long piece!" It's amazing the things we celebrate now that we're parents!

As to be expected, we've experienced a few set backs since our promising start. Several times now, Ryan has urgently informed me that he has to go to the potty. As we're making our panicked dash to the bathroom, I notice that the back of his shorts are already soaked. Since his training pants offer no absorbency, all accidents require a bath and a change of clothes. However, it was a conscious decision to use cotton training pants as opposed to diaper-like Pull-Ups so that Ryan would be better able to differentiate when he's dry versus dirty. Hopefully, he'll quickly realize how uncomfortable soiled training pants are and he'll learn to ask to go to the bathroom before accidents happen.

Here are a few photos of our potty training adventure!

Ryan shows off his big boy training pants! He's especially fond of the patterned ones with puppy dogs and choo-choo trains. Mom favors those as well since he's reluctant to pee-pee on the puppies!

Ryan is clearly proud of himself and enjoys the praise and attention he's received for his potty training efforts.

Ryan shows off his accomplishment (i.e. "the big long piece"). We preemptively positioned the wet-dry vac (seen on the left-hand side of the photo) in the bathroom for those times when Ryan misses or overshoots the toilet.