Potty Training | Are We Nearly There Yet?

It’s been just over 9 weeks since Toby gave us the first signs of wanting to potty train and do you know what? I think, touch wood, that we’ve almost cracked it. At least during the day anyway. Toby was still in a nappies and showed very few signs after my initial post of wanting to use the potty but one night about four or five weeks ago, he decided he wanted to do two wees on the toilet. Woohoo, go Toby! We went out the very next day for supplies; chocolate, pull up pants and real pants.

The next day we put him in a pair of pants and it was possibly one of the worst days ever. I went through no less than 12 pairs of pants and every time Toby told me “wee” it meant he’d already done it. Yup, some of the hugest puddles I’ve seen on the floor that I don’t even know how a small child can hold that much in their bladder! He didn’t seem particularly phased by it, but we kept our cool and just kept reassuring him. By the end of day one I was utterly convinced that despite all of his potty training signals, that he wasn’t ready but we decided to keep going with it to see how it panned out. He went to bed in a nappy that night.

Day two was much less “wet” but much more “number two-y” but we actually managed to half the pairs of pants he went through on day one! Baby steps, but better all round. I wasn’t surprised that he’d still woken up a wet nappy that morning though. I knew we weren’t anywhere near ready for bedtime, especially since it was only day two but it’s something we’ve kept an eye on. We rewarded him with one chocolate button when he did do a wee on the toilet, and offered two for a poo and that worked really well until he cottoned on to the fact that he could pretend to do a wee and still ask for a chocolate. He’s a clever kiddo that one.

We decided to continue with the chocolate until we ran out, which didn’t take long, because obviously Ted felt he needed to be part of the potty party and celebrate with chocolate too. Once this had run out we decided to go with stickers and on a trip to the supermarket I spotted some reward charts which I picked up for a couple of quid. He thinks these are possibly the best thing ever and we’ve managed to get him to regularly brush his teeth with the promise of stickers too, which wasn’t easy!

Toby’s only progressed from there really, although it’s not been without accidents! I’ve had wee all over my kitchen chairs where he’s been so engrossed with his trains that he doesn’t want to pull himself away. He also managed to poo on my drain cover, although that definitely stems from me teaching him to wee down the drain – oops, naughty mummy!

I thought poos would take a lot longer for him to master as he seemed really reluctant to do them on the toilet, instead choosing to do them in his pants. However, he started getting really upset when he did and so now he does us ask us to go to the toilet but will ask us to “stay!” while pointing at the door for us to get out. He loves the clapping and cheering he gets at the end and he’s always so proud of himself.

I’ve got to be honest I thought it’d take a lot longer to crack these day times but I think we really are just about there. Apart from the odd little dribble in his pants we’ve not had a big accident for a couple of weeks which is amazing and I’m so proud of him. I think we’ll wait until he’s really comfortable with the day time before we move on to night time – especially as he’ll be starting back at nursery in just a couple of weeks. Having said that I’ve been keeping an eye on his pull up pants in the morning and they are dry 99% of the time now and he always asks for a wee first thing in the morning.

So what did we do to make this work? Of course the rewards, but Toby was only interested in the potty for a couple of days before he wanted to use the toilet and he’s never looked back. We didn’t use any potty training books or stories either. We were just really encouraging and stuck with finding ways to reward him. He got some new dinosaur pants from Nanny and Pop and they are by far his favourite as he love telling us what’s on the front of his pants in the morning and he’ll even ask for them to be put on. Toby’s now not worn a nappy in the day time for a good few weeks now.

I am so happy and amazed that, despite his hearing and speech problems, he is now catching up! Keep it up little guy. We’re nearly there!