Potty Training Success!

A couple of months before Parker was born we tried to potty train Cohen. I think he could have done it then, he pretty much did, but I couldn't deal with the scrubbing floors aspect while on bed rest. So... we tried again a few weeks ago. This time it worked! I don't know if he was just more ready, or if I was more practiced and patient, or if he remembered what to do from before, but all in all we are happy about it!


So here are some of the things I did. Again... I don't know how much success was due to method or due to timing or prayers!

First, we talked about no more diapers and going to the bathroom on the toilet and how exciting it was for a couple of weeks before the big day.
We made ourselves run out of diapers and pointed out to Cohen that there weren't any left and that he'd have to go on the toilet now.
We did buy pull-ups. I didn't do this last time we tried this, but I think it helped. We talked about them with Cohen before we started and let him see the pictures and how they disappear and everything.
I set up his reward system.

Visible mini marshmallows for going potty on the toilet. He got 1 for going "wee wee" and 2 for going "poo poo." I think it really helped to have them right there in the bathroom in a clear container.




I also made a chart for him. I figured that if all I did was reward him for going on the toilet, he would never be all the way dry. His tendency is to only go a tiny bit in his underwear... realize it, then go to the bathroom. So, every time he went to the bathroom with a dry pull-up or underwear he got a sticker on his sticker chart. He loves Disney movies, and I got these stickers for free, so we had Snow White "watch" him on Monday to see how many stickers he could get, and Duchess watch on Tuesday, etc. If he wasn't dry, we told him it was sad for the characters to be wet and get new underwear, but we tried not to be too upset about it. That's one of the hard parts for me. I tend to expect a lot from the little guy.

So he was in pull-ups for 2 days as he kind of got the hang of it, then I put the underwear on him. The pull-up fading designs don't fade so much if you only go a tiny bit, and it was kind of hard to tell if he was all the way dry. For further persuasion, I bought him a football piggy bank (anything football he loves!) and told him he could have it on the first day he was dry all day long. What a surprise... he was dry the first day I offered this.... Wednesday!

Here is Cohen loving our towel rack, which he gets to use so frequently. There is no smile on his face here, but he was really cute with this idea of his. These are his pretend glasses!

So, now it's May, and we started this in March. He occasionally has an accident, but for the most part he's trained! I can not even tell you how nice it is to only have one baby bum to change now instead of two. I'm so proud of Cohen for picking up on potty training in just a couple of days. I sure love Cohen.