The musings of ME:
SAH mother of 3 kids, spouse of a doctor-in-residency, caretaker and teacher of random children.


Sunday, March 21, 2010

Potty Progress

WARNING: At some point, I plan to have my blog bound as a hard copy of my journal, so many things I document for my records and family reference. The following blog is about potty-training and may include more details than you want to read. Proceed at your own risk!
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I vowed to put everything I had into Potty training Jackson this Spring Break since we weren't planning on going anywhere this year. He did really well, and made several steps in the right direction. I truly believe that he would be potty trained already if I had the time to be more consistent with him, but when you are taking care of 10 kids and 4 are still in diapers...you forget. A lot. Whenever we really try to encourage him , he jumps right in and goes potty. He is proud of himself and he likes to go, so I couldn't in good conscience give up until I had given it one last good try.

On Friday, Jackson didn't have any accidents all day (I don't count the time he peed a little on the carpet because he was trying to push out a little toot, haha)!! He will now tell me he needs to go pee-pee and go take care of it completely on his own, but only if he is naked. If he is dressed, he doesn't even think about it.

Several times when he was naked, he needed to go poop. He wigged out!! The first time, he came running toward the bathroom all flustered, saying "I wanna lay down! I wanna lay down!" (That is what he says sometimes if he has a poopy diaper and wants me to change it.) and as he was running, I saw a little poop hit the floor. When I realized he needed to poop more, I tried to get him to sit on the potty and he would sit, but the second he was about to go, he'd freak out and jump up. I don't know why, but he seems to be scared to poop in the potty.

I told him he'd get in trouble if he pooped or peed on my carpet, and that seemed to work - no more accidents on the carpet when he was naked. (Not my finest moment of parenting, but I did that because he sees our new puppy get a spanking when she has an accident on the carpet and it seemed to connect with him that the carpet is NOT the place to go if he needs to. I tell him puppies pee-pee and poo-poo outside and big boys go potty in the potty, but we do NOT go potty on the carpet.)

Since then every time he needs to poop, he runs back and forth from the playroom to the potty. He'll sit, then jump up and run away, then he'll come back and sit, and then jump up and run away. He has yet to poop in the potty. He needs to go right now, in fact, and he keeps begging me to put his diaper and jammies back on. I keep refusing and telling him that big boys go poo-poo in the potty and if he needs to go, he should go sit down. We have tried sitting there and singing songs and I have even promised him a Chocolate Santa left over from Christmas which he wants more than anything!! I feel like we are close and if I can just get him to sit and go, we'd break that barrier, and he'd see it's not scary, and we'd be mostly done with potty training.

I wish today wasn't the last day of Spring Break because I feel like if I could just have a couple more naked days and then maybe a transitional few days in big boy underwear, then we'd be there, but I worry what will happen when all the kids come back tomorrow.

3 comments:

Kathy said...

Colleen, you are his mom and you know him best, you are also a great mom, so you should do what you think is best.

LOL that was funny. Emma was also scared to poop. I just finally made her sit on the potty when I knew she was about to poop & then when she did it I said, "see that was not so bad, etc etc. It worked for her.

Every kid if different so I am just telling u what worked for us, but it might not work for you. Good luck.

Kirsten said...

I'm going to email you b/c I think my suggestions might be too long for just a "comment" :) haha

Jay said...

Ahhhhh...the good ol' potty training days (and I say ol' with a smile and such relief!). It'll happen. Jackson is sooo close. My little guys both got nervous about pooping in the pot. Beloved Grandma bribed X. with a tractor from Cars (He loved the movie) and it worked! Something will click for Jackson. Goooooo Jackson...in the pot!