26 October 2009

On this Monday...

Although I am very tired, I am starting to see a very dim light in the potty training tunnel. On Saturday, I had to attend a Forensics meeting. During the 6 hours I was gone (longest I'd been apart from the baby and I missed her!), my dear sweet husband decided that he was going to kick potty training into high gear (so much for ignoring the situation for now). I came home to Michael in underwear and pants, his having had several accidents, and Andy being frustrated.

I spent much of the rest of the afternoon listening to Andy's frustration and trying to figure out how to handle this. The rest of the afternoon went pretty much as the morning had with Michael having an accident shortly after going to the bathroom. The pull-up went on at bedtime, and we left it on the burner for the next day.

Add to this that everyone is in various stages of illness. I think Andy may have flu and several of us have sniffles (not Alex, though, thank God!). On Sunday, I woke up to Andy being really sick and my being on my own to care for the 4 kids and Michael's potty training. I put a pull-up on him for Mass because I was not going to deal with it. After that I took all of the boys to swimming lessons. When we got home, I decided to give something a try the my sister-in-law used to do. I let him go bare bottomed. We did this once before with great success until Michael found the pull-ups and that was the end of that.

Soon after he was au naturale, I realized that he could not go like this because he was literally rolling all over the furniture! Gross! So, I tweaked the situation. I put him in just underwear. I did not expect success seeing as he did this the day before with pants over them and had at least a dozen accidents.

Well, my dear sweet boy is just in underwear, and he has not had an accident! He is dry and clean, and going to the potty (with reminders, but he is going none-the-less). I have tied rewards to his being dry and clean. If he is dry when he goes to the potty, he gets a candy and a sticker. If he is dry and goes #2 on the potty he gets 2 candies.

I know we have a long way to go, but on this Monday, I have hope!

6 comments:

Clare LoCoco said...

good luck with this! my parents are always teasing Nino about his late potty-training, this sounds like hes gonna be potty-trained soon enough!

Nancy said...

Good Job, Therese!!! I hope he continues to do well! What a load off of your shoulders (not to mention the expense of diapers!).
It's all good!

Sarah - Kala said...

Sounds like you're getting it on the right track.

Kim H. said...

Wow! You've got a lot going on too! Funny how that happens! Great job on the potty training thing with Michael. Boys are just difficult to potty train. Period.

Hang in there and know I'll be prayin' for ya!

Hugs!

Anonymous said...

Hi Therese,
We tried pull-ups, too, but quickly discarded them, as our son would wet them because they didn't feel yucky when he did.

When we removed the pull-ups, he was dry for most of the time, and toilet training was so easy.
Blessings,
Jillian
<><

Karyn @ Candarbry Garden said...

Some fun things we did was grab a handful of cheerios and toss them in the bowl. Then the boys got to "target practice" Another was the sticker chart! right on the bathroom wall, some days were filled, others had only one or two stickers, but it was a positive visual re-inforcement for them. One of the ways we dealt with the messiness of boys using the toilet was to have them sit backwards on the seat. That way they made it into the bowl, not down the front. Good luck!!! There is a light at the end of this tunnel!