My philosophy on potty training has always been to wait. We start by talking about it, buying underwear and then we set up a rewards system. After that we just wait for the child decide they are ready. With my two older children this worked beautifully. One morning they woke up and decided to wear underwear and after that we had very few accidents.
So when it came time to potty train Ethan, we took the same tactic. For all of you that do not know our third child, he tends to look at the world in a different way. He is always coming up with little comments that make us either fall down laughing or scratch our heads. So it should not surprise me that potty training would be a little different than the other kids.
As the summer came to a close his fourth birthday was coming quickly and Ethan still was showing no interest at all. Finally, last Saturday night he was in the bath and all of a sudden jumped up and told me he needed to go potty. He got out of the tub and he went to the bathroom. The next morning he woke up and decided he wanted to wear underwear. That day we had an accident free day and I felt we were off to a good start.
Monday when he woke up he wanted to wear underwear again and for a large part of the day we did pretty well. In the afternoon he went to his room to take a rest. After a little while he came out of his room and told me he “went poopy.” I assumed he had an accident but when he rounded the corner I realized he was holding the poop in his hand. After cleaning him up, I asked him why the poop was in his hand. He explained to me that he did not want to make his underwear dirty but he did not want to go to poopy on the potty. For whatever reason he decided that going to the bathroom in his hand was the only other alternative. It could be my brother in law’s fault because he is always teasing him about pooping in his pants. Unfortunately, we went through this process two more times before he was finished.
The next several days were a little hit and miss. Tuesday was an accident free day but on Wednesday and Thursday he had one accident when he was playing with his friends. I was hoping that Friday would be a better day.
As it turned out Friday was an accident free day. We even had success with going poopy on the potty. While our older son Aidan was at school he cut his eye with a piece of paper so I had to take him to the eye doctor. On the way to the appointment we stopped off at the grocery store. While there Ethan told me he had to go to the bathroom. Aidan waited outside with Oliver. After Ethan went to the bathroom we came out and Aidan was sitting on a bench a little ways down form the bathroom. Very loudly Ethan yelled, “Aidan I went poopy and it looked like baby Moses.” After laughing I asked him to explain. He told us that it looked like the picture from Sunday school because it was brown and floated.
The days that have followed have been good and I am looking forward to only buying diapers for one child. I am sure there will be more memorable stories before Ethan is completely potty trained.
