Potty training

Little Dudeman has been on a potty training kick lately again.
I'm hoping it's for real this time.

He was showing a lot of interest around 18 months,
but he was still in size 2 diapers at the time
& wearing 9-12 month pants.
There was no way that he would be able to wear 2T underwear.
So I ordered some 18 month training underwear from Amazon.
He was swimming in them.
They were absolutely ginormous.
We couldn't even buy pull-ups or the slip-on diapers
because they don't make them in size 2.
Lovely.
So we did what we could with regular diapers.
It didn't last long before his interest died & he wanted nothing to do with it again.
He wanted to try again right around the time Little Princess was born.
Great timing?
Not so much.
We tried, but with a newborn it just wasn't happening.
Then he lost interest and wanted nothing to do with it for a while.
And so the story goes...
That cycle happened a few more times
with each time slightly more successful than the last,
but nothing worked long-term.

In the past, we've tried:
jumping right into underwear
setting a timer every 15-20 minutes,
giving him "potty juice" (juice or CapriSun) just for trying
(to fill his bladder so that he will want to go more frequently & get more practice),
giving him 2 gummy fruit snacks every successful potty break,
a sticker chart
(1 sticker for #1 & 2 stickers for #2),
a potty toy
(he only gets to play with it if he stays dry between potty breaks),
potty pennies
(one penny in the piggy bank every time he successfully goes potty: 1 for #1, 2 for #2; max 10 cents per day).

Since he's excited about it again,
I'm doing everything I can to keep him motivated
but I don't want to push him so hard that he doesn't want to keep up with it.
I just found & unpacked his underwear on Monday,
so yesterday we said goodbye to the slip-on diapers yet again.
 He wore his underwear without a fuss & stayed dry all day long,
and he went potty every hour and a half-ish.
He had one messy accident.
I still consider it progress.

This time, we're just trying the underwear again.
We're also using a timer...
I first set it at 30 minutes yesterday,
then 45 minutes,
then we tried for an hour long stretch,
and finally worked up to every 90 minutes.
I'm hoping to get to 2 hours today,
unless he says or shows me that he needs to go sooner of course.

We're still putting him in slip-on diapers at night,
but he's been pretty good at staying dry as long as he goes potty right before bed.
I don't know how soon we'll be brave enough to let him wear underwear at night though,
since we still co-sleep with both of our kids right now.
His bed isn't even put together from our move yet.
So as long as he's in bed with us,
he'll probably be wearing the slip-ons at night...

Little Princess went potty in the toilet three times her first day of trying.

She was only 13 ½ months old at the time.
Now at 18 months, she is constantly pulling her diaper down
and wants to go every time Little Dudeman tries.
It's annoying, yet wonderful!
We haven't started her on underwear yet,
but we'll see how she does...

xoxo