Potty Time Tuesday: Poop!

Blake has been doing fairly well with potty training even though we are technically taking a break. He is still asking to go and actually pees on the potty at least twice a day. He even asked to sit on the potty at Grandma's house this weekend, but Grandma doesn't have a potty seat and being dangled over a big hole was not his idea of fun! LOL!

Yesterday Blake was actually doing really well. He went without a diaper all morning with no accidents, but I had to put a diaper on him for nap time. I didn't bother putting pants on him, but come to find out that was a bad decision!

Blake and Morgan tend to play a little before settling down to go to sleep. I know that they do and won't check on them unless there is crying or it has been a while and they still haven't gone to sleep. Well, yesterday they were not settling down, so I went in to check on them. When I opened the door, the first thing I saw was Blake halfway up Morgan's ladder with his little diapered bottom facing me and a brown streak across the back of it! :-(

My first thought was 'Oh no! What has that brown streak touched?!' I'll admit, it could have been worse-at least he kept his diaper on! But there was still poop on his pillow, his comforter, all over the toy chest that he uses to climb up into bed and it was also all over Morgan's comforter. (Remember he was climbing down her ladder, so he had been up in her bed too.) Yuck! I got what I could find cleaned up and my 3 load laundry day turned into a 5 load laundry day. (Six loads if you include the throw I had to wash the day before because he got pee all over it.)

I think this potty training thing has been more of a learning experience for me than it has for Blake. Maybe if I have Blake clean up the messes he'll learn faster!? No? I didn't think so. Good thought though, right? :-)

Potty Time Tuesday: Break Time?

Well, after nearly a week and a half of Blake running around without a diaper, I decided to take a bit of a break and start up again in a couple weeks. Blake wasn't catching on like I had hoped and I was cleaning up more pee puddles and poo piles than I ever thought I was going to!

Funny thing is-Blake doesn't seem to want to take a break! We seem to have come to something that works...at least for now. After putting diapers back on, he kept wanting them off to go potty! So, right now, he goes potty when he wants to and goes in his diaper when he isn't thinking about the potty. Sooooo much nicer than cleaning up accidents and it has been a lot less stressful for both of us! :-) Plus-he is making it to the potty about the same amount that he did when he was running around half naked. I don't know how long it will take him to get trained by this method, but I'm pretty sure he was going to go at his own rate no matter what I tried! :-)

P.S.-The magic reward (after a lot of trial and error) seems to be chocolate chips! I think he is taking after his mommy! ;-)

Potty Time Tuesday: Round Two

I tried back in June to potty train Blake, but he was still peeing about 20 times a day and it really wasn't working out-especially since I was letting him run around half naked and I was cleaning up little piddles all over the house! LOL! I decided that I'd wait a while before trying again. So last week I decided it was time for round two (and hopefully the final round!) Blake had been showing a lot of interest in the potty, he was giving me a hard time about diaper changes and he was letting me know when he peed and pooped.

I went with the same tecnique of letting him run around half naked and leaving a potty chair in his play area. He gets to help flush the potty if he goes, we do a happy dance and clap and cheer for him and he gets candy each time. (I'm doing my best to make him think that going on the potty is fun!) This is how it has gone so far:

Day 1: Pooped in the potty in the morning, peed in the potty 4 times in the afternoon.

Day 2: Only peed once in the potty in the afternoon and pooped in his diaper. (He had been wearing a diaper at naptime and nighttime.)

Day 3: Accidents in the morning. Peed in the potty twice in the afternoon and no poop all day.

Day 4: Only a couple accidents in the morning, then peed and pooped in the potty the rest of the day. (When I say pooped in the potty the rest of the day, I mean he pooped like 6 times! He was making up for the last couple days!)

Days 5&6: It was the weekend and we had places to go, so he didn't do well at all. Being that he wasn't letting us know when he had to go and was only going on his own, I didn't figure he was ready for the pottying anywhere but home anyway.

Day 7: Started with a couple accidents, including a poop accident, but not too bad for being off track all weekend.

It's now Day 8 and I'm hoping he gets on track enough that we can start seeing how he does with underwear/training pants on. I'm really not sure how he will do having to take his own underwear off or ask for help, so I'm concerned we'll be having a lot more accidents again. I guess we'll just have to wait and see...

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Potty Time Tuesday: Accidents

I haven't been working with Blake lately, so I thought I'd mention what has been going on with Morgan.

Saturday afternoon, I took the kids out to play after their nap and a sippy cup of juice. They had been playing for a while, then we took a walk and when we got back I ran into the house for a minute to check the time. When I came back out, Morgan was fussing about something, but I couldn't see her, since she was standing behind the snowmobile in the garage. When I got over to her, she had wet her pants. We got her changed and I didn't think too much of it. She had drank a full sippy cup of juice about 30-45 minutes before and maybe it was just an accident. (She has been potty trained for over a year, but still has the occasional accident.)

We stayed outside for another hour or so, when I decided we should probably head in. Morgan ran ahead and on into the house, while I struggled with Blake. (He can sure put up a fight when he wants to stay outside!) When I got to Morgan, she was standing on the landing with a puddle all around her. I honestly couldn't believe that it happened AGAIN! I got her changed and the mess cleaned up yet again. While I was cleaning I was trying to figure out why she wouldn't have told me she had to go twice in a row? Plus, she was close enough to the bathroom the last time, that she could have just ran in and went!

I still don't know if I got it figured out, but I'm thinking that our tractor ride the night before might have had something to do with it. If you didn't happen to read that post, when we were on the tractor Morgan told me she had to go potty, but with no potties around I let her squat behind the tractor. She had been potty trained a year and I never thought once that it might confuse her, but with two accidents, I'm wondering if it did. I've talked to her about it over and over again, plus I have been constantly asking her is she has to go potty since Saturday. Thankfully there have been no more accidents even after having to squat in the weeds again Sunday night during another tractor ride. I hope she had just gotten a little confused and after our talks she has it all straight now. (I'm keeping my fingers crossed! LOL!)

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Potty Time Tuesday: Bath Time

There is actually nothing new in the potty training department this week. The last time Blake went on the potty was the only time he has gone on the potty. We are continuing to just sit him on the potty when he feels like it-usually once or twice a day. Since we haven't progressed any in potty training, I wanted to share a bath story instead.

Last night, when I went to give Blake his bath, I did the usual getting the tub full of water and adding a few toys for him to play with. I got Blake undressed and stood him in the water. As he was still standing there, I saw this little stream of fluid coming from him, so I grabbed him up and sat him on the potty. Well, I had to empty to the tub and refill it, so I let Blake sit on the potty while I was working at getting him some fresh water to bath in. I should have realized that Blake was being too quiet, but I didn't. When I turned around the roll of toilet paper had nearly been emptied. I rolled the toilet paper back onto the roll as the water filled in the tub again. I took Blake straight from the potty and set him in the new clean water to have another go at giving him his bath. Apparently he was to busy unrolling the toilet paper while he was on the potty to finish going, because as soon as he got back in the water he peed again...

So, the third time was the charm last night. Blake got his bath and as far as I know he didn't bathe in his own bodily fluids. It made me wonder, though, how many times he has peed in the tub without me knowing. Gross, right? I try not to think about it too much...LOL!

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