Pottytraining in a Day

Yesterday morning I sort of geared up for a day of battle with Lochlan. I felt like he was more than ready, could pull his pants up and down by himself, clearly knows what happens in the bathroom, can pronounce all the terminology, and can hold it for long periods of time.

I pulled down some candy, cleaned off the potty chair, gave Lochlan a drink of juice and found the book, and started homeschooling the kids. While they worked on their workbooks, I tried to get Lochlan excited about the potty chair. The other kids sure were! They were telling him how exciting it would be to go on it and asking all kinds of questions about when they were trained, how old they were, etc.

Then I started speed reading through it. After all, I have successfully trained 3 already right? The girls were a piece of cake. Mason not so much. But as I read I found several statements semi-ridiculous:

Get rid of distractions. (What?? This wasn't happening with 3 other kids around).
Have your child carry the bucket to the toilet after each time. (Too messy).
Start early so your child will be trained by nap time. (Not happening).
Print out a diploma for the child when they have successfully learned. (No way! Although I did have a potty bowling party for Mason when he stayed dry all night for a week. He was 4).

But I started with their suggestions anyway. He didn't hate the idea of sitting on the potty chair, but was absolutely against the training pants (even though we bought him some Diego ones). In fact he only wanted to wear them on his head... I made him wear them anyway.

His first accident was in the kitchen (NICE!) He noticed right away that he'd peed and said, "uh oh."
The second one was in the bedroom. So I pulled out a doll that could take in water from a water bottle and when tipped up could "pee." Lochlan got to feed it, pull down her pants and put her on the toilet. Then when she went, he got to empty the potty in the big toilet and flush we all praised her and let Lochlan give her a cookie.

From there on, the potty training took a hilarious turn. Locke decided that this sounded like a lot of fun and went on a 30 minute potty binge. He peed more than 15 times in a half hour and pooped 3 times! It was crazy. I was trying to read the older kids a missionary biography and would only get a couple of sentences in when he sat back down trying to get a chance at some more candy :) He was so hilarious we were all laughing hysterically!

First, he'd go, 

Then he'd pull up his pants (usually with some major anatomy sticking out the top and frequently with underwear backwards and two legs in one hole),

then he'd empty the pot (a huge motivator) which I only did because the book said to...

 and flushed with an audience of 4...

before starting all over again immediately... SO Funny!!

When he figured out the poop, he stood up and said, "Wow! Wookit duys!" (look at it guys)

I couldn't believe how fast he learned. He didn't have any accidents for the rest of the day. He does all of it completely by himself (pants down and up, pot emptied and replaced, flushes, etc.) He was actually trained before nap time. So I guess this method worked pretty well for Lochlan. Later in the day he even went in a public restroom at a local church with no reward. This morning he went #2 again but had a couple of potty accidents. Hopefully he's still just getting used to the prompting and it won't be a problem. I'm really thrilled I didn't go get another pack of diapers. I guess the book isn't as crazy as it seemed :) Really I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that he is almost 3. He was really ready!