Potty Training: Day 1

After an entire weekend of potty prep time, today was our first official potty training day... and it went GREAT!  Either my son is a genius or this Potty Boot Camp method is miraculous!  (I like to think it's the former). 

We started right after breakfast... I took Marco to the bathroom and explained to him what I was doing.  I then put on a clean new Mickey Mouse underwear, and he immediately peed into it.  OH NO!  I again explained what we were doing and put a new underwear on him... not 2 minutes later, he peed again.  Oh geez, this was gonna be a long day!  We cleaned up and put yet another underwear on him... 3 more minutes and he peed yet again!  At this rate, I was gonna run out of underwear and have to do laundry mid-day.  

So I decided to drill.  The drilling is the hardest and harshest part of the method.  But it works.  It's sort of a "tough love" thing, but I figured I'd do it so long as Marco was accepting it... I'd let him gauge it.  We did 10 drills straight.  I held his hand and walked away from the bathroom and asked, "What do we say when we have to go pee-pee?", to which he replied, "Mama, pee-pee" and then I'd walk him to the bathroom and say, "then we go to the bathroom, take off your pants, sit on the toilet, and do pee-pee, in the toilet, not in your pants", all while doing the motions.  That... 10 times.  Brainwashing much?  Yup... and it worked.  We drilled twice overall.  

After that, he'd say, "Mama, caca" and run to the bathroom.  Well, it got me thinking... he was using the word "caca" for both pee and poop.  Now a lot of things were coming together... he has been saying "Mama, caca" for months now... sometimes when he's pooped and sometimes when he hasn't.  I thought he was using it to get attention or just faking it, but now I realize that he was telling us when he peed as well as when he pooped.  If only I'd known, I would have assumed he was ready for potty training months ago!  

The goal for the end of day 1 is for them to begin self initiating... meaning they tell YOU when they have to go to the bathroom.  Marco was doing it by noon!  The only problem after that was that he was saying "Mama, caca" every 5-10 minutes and going in for just a trickle.  Sure, he was doing it, but he wasn't holding at all.  I assume this will get better in a few days time. 

Around 1:45 I put him down for his nap with a diaper.  He was a little confused by this and came out of the room several times to tell me he had to go to the bathroom and I had to explain that he could pee in his diaper because it was nap time.  I was afraid that when he woke up, he would have regressed, but he didn't.  We put his undies back on and he was good to go.  

Unfortunately he didn't poop on the potty at all today... both times was right after waking up, so he went in his diaper.  But overall, today was  a monumental success!  If I had known it was going to be this easy, I wouldn't have been so terrified.  He was SOOO excited to show Mau how he could go pee-pee on the toilet!  I was beaming with pride.  

Here's the proof:

(he'll be thanking me for this one, I'm sure)

the future in underwear modeling

Oh, also Mau started his new job today... today was a good day!