So I have a lot of customers ask how did you potty train your little boys .... this is what I tell them.
With my first son he was almost 3 1/2 when we potty trained him - all our fault as parents as we were waiting for a "sign" that he was ready being first time parents, and we were busy - we'd had another little boy and we just didn't have the time to spend on training him. So had tried to start training him around the 3 year mark but in the 1 week it was horrible and he didn't pee at all in the potty so we gave up for a while. We tried again a while later and it was a HUGE improvement. Johnny trained in 3 days!!! By trained I mean that at the end of the 3 days he went and pee'd and poo'd on the potty - without fights, tantrums or messes in his pants! He was night trained by the end of the week! Wow that was easy I thought - what I did was take him from his cloth diapers directly into BOXERS - not training pants, and not briefs - simply because I thought that that would seem too much like a diaper. I ONLY put a diaper on him for night time (which was done with by the end of the week). The boxer thing was actually proved correct for my boys as anytime he was put into briefs he would pee himself, and I didn't have any
training pants so that one was proved later with Alex (#3).
So then baby #2 - Nicky - ohhhh Nicky! These two boys couldn't be any different if they tried! But 26 months rolled around and I decided that I would start potty training Nicky - this round had more tears than smiles unfortunately but by the end of 7 days we were trained (Nicky was actually night time trained before he was day time trained which is what prompted me to start training him. Now when Nicky was in the house he had very few accidents - he was big enough to go to the potty by himself (just like Johnny was when we trained him) BUT if the kid ever went outside he threw all sensation out the window and just figured that the pee & poo would take care of itself - well it did - in his pants all of the time. It had nothing to do with lack of sensation as he proved every day when he was inside the house that he knew when he needed to pee. So after almost 2 years of accidents on a weekly (sometimes daily) basis I can finally say that Nicky is completely 100% potty trained. Man that was a crazy time - warm weather was a killer on the underwear drawer! We even tried to curb the behaviour by not allowing him to play outside because he had pee'd himself, that worked for a few days and then he'd be right back at it. We even made him go pee BEFORE he was allowed to leave the house - so he'd pee and then not 30 minutes later he'd be wet! So we used a time and every 20 minutes the timer would go off and he'd have to go pee - this we found was the most useful tool of anything!
Baby #3 (Alex) was about 4 months old when we potty trained Nicky so there we were again about 25 or so months this time around potty training the final boy (at least for now). Alex we kind of do things by accident - he moved from his crib into a toddler bed by accident (we set it up but were just trying to get him use to the idea, and he fell asleep) .... - so it was kind of an accident that we potty trained him. One day he said Mommy pee! So I put him on the potty and he pee'd - now this shocked me and I got excited - yeah all my boys will be potty trained (now if I could just teach them all to AIM!!! my toilets might at some point in my life be clean again!). Well my husband thought that training pants would be a better idea this time around - less mess for the week while they are training - I didn't agree with him as my methods had worked the last two times (and I'm the one training them!) so why not go my route - but I figured it can't hurt and I told him that I would try it for 1 week (no more if it wasn't working). So I made Alex some Traineez and off we went - one pee in the
Traineez at a time! There was no progress - oh he knew when he was wet and he would tell us but he wouldn't tell us before when he needed to go pee. So with absolutely NO improvement after 3 days my DH gave up and told me to just put him into boxers - 7 more days and we were done! Now Alex has probably been the hardest and the easiest - hardest because he's soooo tiny that his little legs weren't long enough to allow him to sit on the potty himself. He had to be lifted up onto the baby potty every time! Also he's very stubborn and didn't like to poop - so he'd sit there for hours (yes 2 hours) and then I'd let him up for 10 minutes and he'd poop himself! It took RAISINS to get him to poop - this again was by accident! One day he came to me and said Mommy Poop so I got up ready to clean out his underwear at least I was still level headed for the day and hadn't started to tell him that you don't poop in your undies - where do you poop?
potty - not in your ?
undies which had become our weekly (2-3 times) routine. I asked him if he had poop in his undies and he said no it's in the potty! WHAT?????????? :SHOCK: :AMAZE: :JOY: :ELATION: could it be??? Could he have actually just pooped on the potty without crying, screaming and the like? I go to the potty and then start to praise him because yes he had! Well this happened every morning like clock work for a few days and we couldn't figure out what was different - then I realized around the end of the week that the boy had been eating raisins like candy (he loves them!) and that must have been just enough softening to not make it a thought provoking thing (he wasn't constipated before by any means but the more he thought about it the worse it got!) Oh and Alex has finally grown just enough in the last 6 or so months that he can get onto the potty by himself :) YEAH
So after that "little" story about how I potty trained my boys I sum it up - if your child is in disposable diapers then the cloth
Traineez pants work great!!! BUT if they are in cloth diapers switching to a
Traineez pant probably won't do you any good as they'll just see it as a diaper - switch directing to undies (preferably boxers) so they get a very different sensation (they generally don't like the pee running down their legs - gross I know but their peeing in their undies either way :) My other suggestion is don't switch back and forth from undies to diapers - kids do get confused and they won't be able to figure out when they are suppose to go in them and when not :)
