Potty Training

We've reached milestones right and left at our house lately. This post is a little long , but I'm using this as a journal, so bear with me!

Yesterday, on a whim, I decided to start potty training Ethan. They say to go for it when they're ready and I've been putting it off far too long. He's been asking about using the toilet and showed a lot of interest. So it was time to just tackle it. I've been DREADING this moment since his birth. We didn't have a great experience with Sydney and I'd heard boys can be harder to train. But he will be 3 this sunday, so I guess it's a good time to try.

I tried a couple of different methods. Going naked and just putting pants on him. It seems like for him the naked thing worked better right at first. Well, half naked, he did have a shirt on for most of the time. Anyway, he would hold it in if he was naked. But as soon as I'd put pants on him, he go. Poop, pee, whatever. I cleaned up lots of wet and poopy messes yesterday. He finally peed in the toilet a tiny bit after dinner, so we all made a big deal and gave him his treat. It was great. Then about one minute later, he peed all over the stairs. But that's how it goes!

Today has been quite a different story. He refused underwear for awhile, and just ran around with a naked bum. He held everything in all morning until about 11:45. Then I put underwear and pants on so we could go to the park and he had an accident right away. So we changed and then once we were at the park, he held it in. He seems to grasp that concept pretty well. He only has had 2 accidents all day, and even stayed dry during his nap! For the rest of the day I put him on the toilet about every 10-15 minutes. But he gave me nothing - just kept holding it in. And we had had a pretty busy day - the park, Sydney's soccer pictures, and a Modbe swimsuit party (which I wasn't going to go to, but really wanted to try on the swimsuit I was going to buy!)

When we finally got home he said he needed to go and then really went potty on the toilet! I actually stuck his hand in a cup of warm water (because I really wanted him to pee!) and I don't know if that's what did it or if it was just a coincidence (slumber parties, anyone?). It was cute because all evening he would hold his bottom and say he needed to go potty or poop. Then we'd rush to the toilet and nothing would happen. I could tell he really needed to go, but he was nervous so he held it in.

Well, after his potty success, not 5 minutes later, he sat himself on the toilet and POOPED INTO THE TOILET!!! Okay, for those of you who have potty trained before you know what a difficult thing this can be for some kids. And this may be a fluke thing....but he just did it without me even sitting by him coaxing him or anything! Of course there was huge fanfare and he got to pick out a toy from his "poop reward" stash. He chose a little Goodyear blimp and is sleeping with it right now.

Now I don't want to count my chickens before they're hatched, but I'm pretty stoked!! Hopefully his confidence will stay and he will continue what he's started tonight. But we'll see. Wish us luck!