Potty Training Brendan

This is how we are now spending our weekends. Potty Training. I dreaded this from the first time we went up a size in diapers. I had been warned, "potty training boys is so hard!" So I avoided it...until it was obvious it was time to move on to the next step. With my mother's help along with support from Marion (our Day Care provider) Brendan began sitting on the potty and actually going when asked around his second birthday. Then with the hernia surgery, baby brother, mom off work, and all other schedule changing events, potty training came to a stand still.

He will go pee-pee on the potty anytime asked, he does not EVER tell us when he needs to go, and will just pee in his pants when he needs to go. Our biggest challenge is getting him to actually sit down long enough to go poo-poo on the potty.

I have done all sorts of research on the subject. Everyone has their own opinions on the best way, best age, and best reward system in potty training. We even bought a book "Being Potty-Wise" or something like that. Our plan was to potty train in a weekend, just like the book and always trustworthy Internet said. That obviously didn't work for us. I thought about using the approach, "He'll potty train when he is ready" but then I thought maybe I was being a little bit lazy with that one. For now, we are just trying what works best for us right now, we encourage it when we can, explain to process, show him the process, make him help clean up the mess so he learns, eventually it will catch on (I hope). I am not too worried yet, he just hit two-and-a-half so we still have a little time. I would like him to be trained by the time he hits his 3rd birthday.


We decided that from now on when we are home on the weekends (and when we are able to on weeknights) we put Brendan in real underwear (Mickey Mouse of course!) and talk about being a big boy and using the big-boy potty. He stayed dry for almost all of Saturday, only one accident (pone Sat, 2 on Sun) which thanks to the Big-Boy-pants, he knew instantly that he had wet and should have gone to the potty.

I guess you can say we are making progress, I just need him to understand when he has the urge he needs to go sit on the potty.

Below is a video of Brendan as we wait to go on the potty. I'm sure this borderlines child abuse as inappropriate pictures/videos that will scar him in his teenage years that his mother showed the world (and I can only imagine what Scott will say when he sees the post) but I just think he is so adorable, and this is a milestone that every child goes through, so why not share?

You have to listen closely at his little voice, but he is learning to count to 20. Usually we do pretty well to 13, but then all the teens sound the same, he is better now than in the video (taken a couple weeks ago).