Much Better!

During the first attempt at potty training in July days 1-4 went pretty well, and then day five was such a disaster that I decided he wasn't ready to be potty trained yet. I was afraid the same thing was happening on day three this second time around (Thursday). With Nadia and Ian the first day was definitely the worst. I wasn't expecting to have a day three or five be far worse than day one in terms of number of accidents and such (on Thursday he had four accidents before 7:30am just to give you an idea). Maybe I shouldn't have jumped ship back in July. Who knows. I am glad though that I didn't give up this Thursday because he did much better yesterday, and today he went 11 hours without an accident (and then proceeded to have three accidents within less than an hour but then did fine the rest of the evening). The weather has been really pretty this week. It's been rather cool in the morning, but then it has warmed up to the high 70's in the afternoon. We didn't go to the playground Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday due to potty training. Yesterday I decided it was time to venture out into public with Oliver in underwear. We were out of the house for quite a few hours yesterday between going to yard sales in the morning and then to the grocery store and playground in the afternoon. He stayed dry! Today we were out and about again this morning with yard sales and Ian's soccer game, and he did a great job again. Both days I brought his potty in our van and he used it a few times. I think though that church tomorrow would be too much since we're there for four hours. I will take him tomorrow night when Nadia and Ian have choir, but he's going to stay home with Paul in the morning. I'm assuming that next Sunday he'll be ready to go to church, and I'm also hoping to take him to Puggles on Wednesday night this week. Time will tell. It's another hurdle for a child to pee for someone else on an unfamiliar potty.

The big steps forward is the good news. The bad news is that I haven't been able to train him to tell me when he needs to go like I did with Ian. Unlike Nadia when she was first potty trained, he has told me a few times (and also given some false alarms which of course I take seriously) when he needed to go. He always talks about needing to poop, even when he actually needs to pee. Mostly I have reverted to watching the clock and putting him on the potty at least once an hour, like I did with Nadia. I definitely preferred the method that worked with Ian, but it just didn't seem like that was going to happen with Oliver. I will keep working toward that end though because it's difficult for me to keep a close watch on him at all times to read the signals that he needs to go to the bathroom (such as running behind our mauve chair when he has to poop). The first eight days that he took a nap in his underwear, he stayed dry. Ironically yesterday (when in general he made big steps in the right direction), he totally soaked himself during his nap. Today his underwear was a little damp, but I didn't have to wash his sheets again. I might start putting a diaper over his underwear just for his nap to protect the bedding. He's waking up soaked in the morning so I have no desire to work on night time potty training yet. The last four days I had to do a load of laundry every night so he would have some clean underwear for the next day, but that wasn't the case tonight! Here's to hoping I can go at least every other day with the laundry due to fewer and fewer accidents. My baby is down to one diaper a day! I'm also in the process of teaching him how to pull up and down his underwear and pants. There are SO many different skills involved with potty training!