Potty training update :)

I waited a few days before posting this because I wanted to be sure this time, but I think I can safely say that Bitty is now officially potty-trained :). At age 4 1/2, it took him about a year longer than it took his brothers (they were about 3 1/2, finished potty training not long before Bitty was born), but the process was much less messy with him so I have no complaints. ;)

After he did his #2 business in the potty that one time, we hid the pull-ups. I admit I started to question that strategy when he got really upset and decided to hold it rather than use the potty. He figured out that he could wait until bedtime and use his bedtime pull-up (because he's not always dry at night so we always put a pull-up on at bedtime).

But it wasn't long before he got tired of having to wait and decided the potty wasn't so bad after all. That, and he decided our offers of chocolate made the effort worth it, even though that didn't work before.

So whenever he went, he'd come running running to tell us,

"You di' gwayjah poop-ah-da-paw-yee, you geh CHWOCWIT" (you did a great job pooping in the potty, you get chocolate."

That's quite a sentence, huh? He can do that when he's repeating something he's heard, and of course he was telling us what he expected us to say, hehe.

We did, in fact, reiterate what a great job he did and offer him a little chocolate (he's partial to the "red" chocolate, the plain Nestle mini's that come in a red wrapper).

In fact, for a little while there I thought he'd figured out how to "game the system" because he'd do a little bit of #2 in the potty, ask for a chocolate, and then do a little more and want another chocolate... like he was trying to spread out his business to maximize the chocolate, lol.

Anyway, I noticed that today he didn't ask for any chocolate, so I guess it's becoming "old hat" for him now :). He WAS pretty impressed with himself for waking up dry this morning though, and we haven't made a big deal out of that yet. His conversation with himself (heard while I was half-asleep because it was the crack of dawn) went something like this:

"Iss 'Bitty' weh o' dwy? 'Bitty' iss dwy!"
(yells loudly) "GWAY-JAH 'BITTY'!!!"

He is his own best cheerleader, it's so cute to see him cheering himself on :). Obviously he's internalizing what he hears, both from us and from his teachers at school, and it's great that he recognizes on his own when he did something good.

Anyway, so the next step, as he already decided on his own, is to work on staying dry all night. He still likes a cup of chocolate milk to help him relax at bedtime though so we're not going to push that one for now. It's not entirely realistic to expect him to stay dry at night until he's ready to give up the bedtime drink. Another goal for another day - for now I'm just enjoying the newfound freedom from pull-ups during the day :).





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Houston: We have poop!! (Updated)

LOL, I can only imagine the google searches I'm going to get now but oh well.

Mr. Bitty pooped on the potty yesterday!! Woohoo! He hasn't even wanted to TRY, in fact has gotten extremely upset whenever we suggested so much as an attempt. And then yesterday he just jumped up there and did it all on his own.

We suspect that maybe he couldn't find a pull-up to bring us (we're almost out but there were still some in there) and it may have been too urgent for him to take time asking for help finding a pull-up, so he relented and used the potty...

Whatever it was, I'm really hoping this is a new trend and not just a one-time thing. I'll keep ya posted!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Update:
Ok, I may have jumped the gun a bit with my excitement... today he was back to wanting a pull-up (even after we tried to hide them) and he went ballistic when I tried to get him to poop on the potty. We'll keep trying though!





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A smidgen of progress?

Just a quick update on the potty-training front. As I've mentioned before, Bitty does great with #1 in the potty, and to date he has utterly refused to even try #2. For that, he adamantly insists on having a pull-up. I can't really complain, because cleaning up a messy pull-up is sooo much easier than cleaning up messy underwear and I would LOVE it if we could go straight from pull-ups to potty and just skip the whole underwear messification. (I know, TMI and made-up words in the same paragraph...).

Anyway, so today after the success of Operation Oreo in getting a very resistant Bitty to walk - willingly, and without screaming - into the school building after he initially started crying just from pulling into the parking lot, it occurred to me to see if the same incentive plan would jump-start our poop-in-da-pawee initiative.

So when Bitty came to me asking for a pull-up, I made my usual offer of "let's go sit on the potty instead!" and he answered with his usual, "no sit ah da pawee."

But I had the Oreo "card" in my back pocket this time.

The possibility of earning a cookie was enough to get him to sit on the potty, but when it came time to actually doing his business, he just wouldn't stay there. He kept getting up and dancing around, I kept convincing him to sit on the potty again, and he would, but then he'd jump up again.

After much frustration, he finally said, "No here!"

Proud of him for at least trying for the first time, even though in the end he just wasn't comfortable enough with the idea to actually go through with it yet, I finally offered him a pull-up.

I told him it was his choice, and that I was proud of him for getting this far, but that opting for the pull-up would mean not earning the cookie.

I felt kind of mean doing that, especially when he took that important first step of actually sitting on the potty when he had to go #2. But I had already told him the cookie was for actually going in the potty, not just sitting there and I was afraid that offering him a cookie for not actually following through would just undermine my credibility and our efforts in the future, and might even result in him expecting a cookie for doing #1 in the potty when he is already doing that just fine.

He must have understood, because he did not ask me for a cookie after using his pull-up, and he didn't seem upset about it.

I have no idea if this is the start of something, or if it will be months before he makes his next attempt, but either way I'm encouraged and we'll just keep trying!






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Maybe it's the "moom"

It's a full moon (or "moom" as Bitty says it), and all three boys have been cranky these last couple of days. Cuddlebug and Bearhug have been fighting more than usual. It could also be because they know the end of school is coming, and impending transitions tend to stress them out.

To top it off, Bitty has taken a step backward with his pottying. He was doing so good with going pee in the potty at least, and now he doesn't want to even do that. He's had so many accidents these last few days because he holds it forever, insisting that he doesn't have to go when we ask (today he went so far as to spell out his answer when I asked if he needed to go potty, "N-O-NO!"

We finally stopped asking and just started picking him up and putting him on the potty. That has spared the carpets but results in a quite ornery Bitty (I suppose I'll take the ornery Bitty over the mess on the carpet).

On that topic, he still has no interest in doing his #2 business on the potty. We try to convince him to at least try sitting on the potty when asks for a pull-up but he refuses. His well-thought-out arguments against pooping in the potty go something like this:

"No poop-a-da paw-ee" (no poop in the potty)

and

"Yes poo-wup" (yes pull-up)

Who can argue with that logic?





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Bitty's testing me (funny)

We're about to head out for a while, but this was too funny not to share real quick first.

Bitty was acting like he needed to use the restroom, so I asked him, "Is it potty time?"

"No"

"Are you sure?"

[he ignores me]

Not 10 seconds later, he was stripping down in the bathroom (because that's what he does) so I asked him again, "Do you need to go potty?"

To which he answered, "Cor-RET!"

LOL... I didn't realize it was a test, but I'm glad I got the right answer :).





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Update on Little Bitty

It's been crazy-busy lately but thought I'd share a couple of updates on Little Bitty. The other day, I asked him how his day at school was, expecting to hear the answer he always gives, "koo bus" (school bus) . It doesn't matter how we ask the question:

"How was school today?"
"Did you have a good day at school?"
"Did you have fun at school?"
"What did you do at school today?"

The answer is always the same: "Koo bus"

He says it with a smile so we have generally taken this to mean he had a good day at school. (Ironically, he doesn't even ride the bus, he's always been a car-rider).

So when I asked him the other day, I was surprised when he gave a new answer:
"Ms. J---" (his teacher's name)
"Wow, you saw Ms. J--- today?"
"Ms. A---" (his speech therapist's name)
"You saw Ms. A--- today too? Did you have fun with Ms. A---?"
He smiled and went back to playing with his trains. Dh and I were pretty amazed :).

-----------------

Not so much progress on the potty-training front though. We're still pretty much at the same place we were a couple of months ago. Well, actually we have had a little progress in that he will sometimes tell us "po-ee tie" when we're out in public now, and if we can get to a bathroom in time he'll use the potty. He's done this at church a couple of times. Unfortunately, he won't go unless his pants are completely off, so it takes a little time getting his shoes and everything off. One time I wasn't fast enough to get everything off and get back to help him aim (he doesn't do that by himself yet), and he got me. Luckily I had a black skirt on and you couldn't tell, and church was almost over at that point. It's not an issue at home obviously, since he is a minimalist when it comes to clothes at home.

He still shows absolutely no interest in doing #2 in the potty. None whatsoever, no matter how much we encourage and cajole. On the bright side, he still asks for a pull-up when he needs to do #2. That means (1) he recognizes the need to go before it happens, and can tell the difference b/t needing to go #1 and #2, and (2) he doesn't want to go in his underwear. That's pretty huge as far as I'm concerned. Two other boys who will remain nameless had no qualms about doing #2 in their underwear when they were potty-training. In fact, they would go hide somewhere to do their business in their pants, and then come walking around like nothing had happened. The clean-up was NO FUN.

So I'm extremely grateful that Bitty gives us some warning and prefers to use a pull-up for that, because it's easier to clean him up. Sometimes he even tries to clean himself up, but that generally leads to a bigger mess, and often even a quick bath. Which he hates :(.

As for trying to get to the next step, when he asks for a pull-up, we try to get him to sit on the potty (sometimes we put him there), and tell him it's potty-time.

His response: "No po-ee tie, pooyuh" (no potty time, pull-up)

He gets really agitated if we push it, and we don't want this to become a battle of wills or risk making it a bigger issue than it needs to be, so don't push too hard. He'll get there when he's ready.





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