Potty Trained At Last!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Oh, who am I kidding. These past 2 yrs have been some of the worst of times for me in the epic battle of potty training my son, John. I've already written some blogs about potty training him and every time I've made progress with him and mentioned it to others, it would backfire and we'd be at square one all over again.

Shortly after John turned 2 I began easing him into the idea of going potty like a big boy and trying to get him out of diapers. I started with giving him lolly pops as a reward and we called them 'potty pops'. That worked for a short time. Then we tried M&M's. That didn't work for long.

I tried putting him in big boy underwear, going 'commando', all kinds of different treats, yelling and ashamedly I even tried a spank on the toosh if he soiled his underwear. I was at my wits end several times over the past 2 years. Yes, it's taken me TWO YEARS to get this child potty trained.

This past school year John was able to get into the local Head Start program in our county and that was a HUGE blessing to us. He was able to be around other children a few hours each day and many of them were already potty trained, so he saw other kids going potty and started giving it a try himself. The thing about John is he's stubborn and hard headed. He doesn't like being told what to do and when to do it. He does things his way in his time.

His last day of school was last month and I decided that his first full day home for the summer he was going to start wearing his big boy underwear and we were simply going to trudge through and conquer potty training. His teacher said that by the end of the school year he was completely potty trained for her, so I figured, if he can do it at school, he could do it at home, too. So, the day after he was done with school it was big boy underwear and no more pullups (even at night time)

I haven't had much troubles getting him to make a wet on the potty, it's always been a problem getting him to make a stinky on the potty. That's where we fought our battle the hardest. So, when his teacher said he was making #2's at school I knew he could do it at home, too.

It's been a month since school let out for John and he's done wonderfully. A couple accidents over the weeks, but, that's to be expected. Overall he's got the hang of it. I won't lie. Over the years there were lots of tears shed, meltdowns and tantrums thrown, some of them even by John. But, I feel like it's finally safe to say that after this 2 yr battle, John is finally potty trained. Now, I only have one more kid to get potty trained and then we'll be done with diapers for good!