Potty Training

I probably should have been more organized, more informed, and started a lot sooner than now, but the day has arrived. I decided that today is the day we are going to start training. I'm sure there are many experts that would argue just starting one day without much preparation, but I have at least thought about things and talked with people the past little while, and I really feel like we just need to get going and start trying to potty train, especially since he has randomly been going to the potty and randomly telling us he needs to go (and actually going) for quite awhile now. So today we went to walmart and I let Noah pick out some more big boy underwear, stickers for his potty chart, and his first reward for going potty a certain number of times (I picked a small amount for the first time to hopefully keep him motivated and quickly understand how the potty chart works as a reward system). For his reward he picked out a Thomas The Tank Engine toy, a flashligh/light-up Percy that says phrases as well as lights up (but the rest of his prizes won't be as big or expensive). He picked out animal stickers for the stickers for his potty chart. For his underwear he picked out Disney's Cars and Thomas the train undies, and he already had some Toy Story pairs. (Just a little note: his little bum looks so cute in big boy undies HaHa! I love it! I'm sure he'll die when he's older if he ever reads that statement.)

Before we headed to walmart this morning, I let him go diaperless, although he wanted his pants on, so I put those on him. He had an accident and went diaperless and pantsless after that. While he was diaperless he somehow peed on the side of the ottoman without me noticing, but pointed it out to me HaHa. I remained calm and told him that we only go pee in the potty, and he says "How about pee on the couch?!" and just laughed at me, he actually argued back and forth with me about it for a few minutes, but only because he really knows that we don't go potty on the couch and he was just being silly/difficult HaHa. ;)

Since being home from walmart he has gone on the potty twice! Once right when we got home, and then he thought he got his prize/train, so he's been whining at me over and over again to give it to him, ugh! I am already tired of explaining that he has to get more stickers on his potty chart before he can get it, but I have tried really hard to stay excited and positive about it and not let my frustration of being whined at show HaHa. Then he just went potty a few minutes ago, yay! We have only had one accident since being home from walmart, and he was excited to change into a new pair of new, fun underwear, so at least he's wanting to wear them. This last time going potty he wanted to wear a new pair of underwear, too HaHa. So I let him pick a new pair out, even though the other ones were clean. I really hope and want for potty training to be mostly a positive experience, although I know there are probably going to be some negatives and tears, especially when it comes to trying to get him to go poop on it, but for the most part I'm going to try really hard to keep it fun and positive!

Tonight I will put him in a diaper before he goes to bed, as he still wakes up with a wet diaper, but I'm going to try to really limit his liquids a bit before bedtime and make sure he goes potty before bed, so hopefully he will wake up with a dry diaper consistently for awhile so we can have him wear big boy underwear all the time! They say not to put them back in diapers after you've put underwear on them, but I don't really know what else to do at night, especially since like I mentioned he still wakes up with a wet diaper. I would hate for him to be in underwear and wet himself at night but not wake up, I don't want him sleeping all night in wet, yucky sheets/blankets and jammies!

So, so far we have a 3:2 ratio of accidents to going potty HeHe. Not too bad! ..and it can only get better right?! ;) We will see how it goes from here on out. Wish me luck! :)

Here is some photo documentation HaHa. My cute boy in his big boy underwear and his potty chart. As far as the potty chart goes (I know it's nothing fancy), the 1st blue squares filled up and he gets his first prize/the train he picked out, after that he has to fill up the other two color coded squares to get his 2nd and 3rd prizes, then hopefully by then we won't need to continue rewarding him it will just be second nature.



*Edited to add that he has gone potty again, right after I finally got this posted. (So that makes 3:3 accidents to going potty). And another big reason I wanted to mention it is because I make a big deal out of when he goes, clap and cheer, and while I was doing that he waves his little hand at me (kind of like he is dribbling an imaginary basketball) and says, "That's enough, that's enough. It's too loud." HaHa! I guess he doesn't need such a big celebration, or at least that time he didnt! ;) It totally cracked me up! He is too funny!
I also wanted to add something I forgot to mention earlier (just for my records), I have been setting the timer every 20 minutes to have a physical reminder for myself to remind/ask him if he needs to go, as well as one for him to be reminded to try and go, or to be reminded to think about it at least. I don't make him try every 20 minutes, it's just something to help remember to think about the potty. ;) This idea came from the potty watches you can buy for little ones, it is a watch they wear with an alarm that goes off every little while to help remind them about going potty. I figured for now I'll save the expense and just set the timer.