Preston has expressed interest in going on the toilet on a couple different occasions but it never stuck. I kept waiting for the signs of waking up dry, finding a specific spot to do his business in his diaper, telling me when he had a dirty diaper but none of them came. Preston's third birthday came, he was the size of a five year old and getting very difficult to change, especially in public, but he was showing no interest regardless of our efforts of telling him how cool it is to be a big boy.
After a few weak attempts at potty training and experiences in other areas we realized there aren't a lot of things we can bribe Preston with. If there is something he really doesn't want to do he will not do it even if candy, money, stickers, etc. are on the line. After a bike ride with Daddy and deciding he wanted a big boy bike like Daddy's we told him he could get one when he wore underwear like a big boy. He was excited about that so we ran with it.
His little tricycle just wasn't going to cut it for this boy who wants to be just like Dad.
This all came up on a Friday night the weekend before we were going to spend 2 weeks babysitting my siblings. I felt like this was a very inconvenient time with 3 hour church on day 2 of potty training and 2 weeks of being in an 8,000 sqft house and 2 acres for Preston to play in and not want to stop to go potty. But if he was excited then we were going to do it.
He was so determined at the beginning of the first day he would sit on the toilet even if he didn't have to go and just wait. I'd tell him he could try again later but he was going to sit there until he went. Going to sit on the toilet every 20 minutes must have been as tiring to him as it was to us because by the afternoon of the first day he begged for a diaper. I was ready to just say give it to him and we'll push potty training after babysitting but Jared was so anxious to get him out of diapers he promised he would handle it over the weekend and if there wasn't significant progress by Monday morning then we would try later.
After pushing through that first afternoon and helping Preston realize there was no option to wear diapers any more something clicked and he did really well. We learned that even on that first day he understood what it felt like to need to go. When the timer went off every twenty minutes we would have him sit on the toilet but after just a second he would tell us "my bum's not working." and we knew he meant it. He only had 2 accidents that day and they were later in the day when we got caught up with other things and forgot to remind him to go. That night we put him in a diaper to sleep and Jared told him to keep it clean. For a kid who wakes up every morning with a diaper filled to capacity we were shocked to see his diaper was dry the next morning and almost every morning after that.
By day two he had told us he needed to go on his own and made it all the way through church accident free. By the end of the day I agreed to continue with the potty training at my parents'. There were some tears most mornings of the first week when we made him change out of his diaper and into underwear but on day three I could just ask if he had to go potty and trust that he would go if he needed to. By the end of the week Preston was going potty without us reminding him and had only had a few accidents which usually happened on his way to the toilet.
I thought for sure potty training was going to be a night mare and that even once he was trained I would still have to constantly help him and remind him but Preston surprised us and not only earned his bike in one week but didn't need any assistance or reminding him to go potty.
As expected he still hadn't figured out going messy in the toilet but I had a feeling he would just figure it out. With one more week of bribing him with suckers, trying to explain to him what he needed to do, and giving him movies while sitting on the toilet around the time that he would normally go he eventually just got it.
2 weeks and this boy is completely potty trained and does it all on his own.
I was still a little concerned how well he was able to hold it if we were somewhere without a toilet. One day we were driving home and he informed us he had to go potty. We told him to hold it and we would find a bathroom. A few minutes later I realized he was wiggling in his seat and crossing his legs. We quickly found somewhere to stop and ran him in to the restroom. He made it and I now know he knows how to hold it if he needs to.
We're so proud of him and I love having only one child in diapers.
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