I'm not sure that potty training is an accurate term here. In the last week, Jacob decided he was ready to wear undies and use the potty and that's it, he's doing it. Period, done, I could end the post here.
Let me rewind a few months though. We've been trying, on and off for a few months to potty train him with no success. In the back of my mind I kept repeating to myself the advice a good friend gave me about potty training, "You can't want it more than they do."
1. We tried the "potty train you child in 3 days" routine where we didn't leave the house, he ran around with no diaper and we tried taking him to the potty a lot. That didn't work, he just held it forever and then peed a gallon on the floor wherever he was.
2. We tried the timer method, asking him to go sit on the potty every 20 minutes all weekend until he peed. That didn't work, he refused to sit on the potty.
3. We tried sticker charts. He tore them up.
4. We even tried offering a toy for each time he went to the potty. He told us "I don't need toys."
5. We didn't try the "M&M method" because there wasn't a food that would have bribed him and he won't eat M&Ms or any other candy. (Maybe we could have tried ice cream cones :-))
I decided our next try was to going to include only underwear. He's been wearing pull-ups at school (his current classroom won't allow diapers). He just treats them like diapers though so they aren't helping with the potty training. So my thought was, put underwear on him (we did try this a very long time ago briefly but he wouldn't even put them on) and see how it goes.
Fast forward to last Saturday. He woke up with a dry diaper and even after watching an episode of Curious George in he was still dry. So, I decided I'd take him downstairs and ask him to sit on his potty while I got his breakfast together. He peed immediately. So, I put underwear on him and we went about our day. We (nervously) went to the Aquarium in the morning and he stayed dry but refused to use the bathroom there and then peed in his car seat right before we got home. We put him down for nap in pull ups and after nap put underwear back on and kept on trucking.
Fast forward again to tonight, Friday night. He hasn't had another accident since, has woken up with a dry diaper every morning, and is wearing undies to bed for the first time tonight (his choice). He did it, and he is proud, and we are too! He tells us when he needs to go and goes, he tells his teachers when he needs to go and goes. We spent the first couple of days asking him frequently if he needed to try as a reminder. Now, if we ask him he replies, "If I'm doing the potty dance I need to pee. If I'm not doing the potty dance I don't need to pee. I'm not doing the potty dance." He's completely got it and he's shocked all of us a bit.
I stayed home with him Monday just to have one more day to solidify things before he went to school. On Tuesday when I took him in with undies his teachers were quite apprehensive(rightly so, he sits on the potty everyday at school multiple times and hasn't gone once). He did it though, he didn't have any accidents. The next day they were much more optimistic, and by the time I picked him on Thursday they said "he's got this" and smiled.
This shouldn't surprise us because he seems to make this type of change suddenly and not until he is completely ready. He showed no signs before he stopped nursing suddenly right before 18 months. Within 5 days he stopped. He didn't climb out of his crib until the week he turned 3 and then he did it non stop so we took the side off of his crib and there was no transition period at all to sleeping in his now "toddler bed".
So now, he's ready to go, have fun, play, be a 3 year old wearing his cute little 4T Disney undies and Mark and I are trying to figure out what to do in this new stage of life. :-)
