The potty train has chugged into the station

WARNING - this is a CRAZY long post. It also talks a lot about poop.

Here is the link to the video I reference later in the blog... you will want to check it out - so cute!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtq1XV6ZVOc

Jaxon was very scared to go poop on the potty so this is how we had him totally potty trained in 4 days and NO accidents during that time. He was totally pee potty trained in one, the other couple days were to get him ok with going poop on the potty. We started on September 13th and he hasn't had an accident since and is a peeing pooping pro! :)

Alright - so when Jaxon was about 2, I started thinking about potty training him, so I went online and read a TON of information about it, and what I discovered is that it is better to wait until your child is ready instead of forcing them to do it when you are ready. So I familiarized myself with the signs of readiness and watched and waited for him to be ready. Well a little bit before he was 3 I was seeing most of the signs and one day he came out of the bathroom without a diaper on and he said he had peed in his diaper and he needed to flush it down the toilet.

Luckily he didn't because that could have been a major plumbing expense, but that day I decided to just start potty training him. I wasn't really prepared but I didn't care, I thought - he is ready right now... let’s just do it. He went pee on the potty several times that day and I would give him treats every time he did it and he was so excited and proud of himself and was doing a great job! I had him sitting on the potty to go and one time he felt like he was going to poop too and he FREAKED out. Screaming, crying, trying to jump of the toilet so I just kept putting him back on and fighting with him trying to get him to stay there because I knew he had to go and after about an hour I had the thought that maybe I was freaking him out and making him MORE afraid of the potty so I stopped and when I tried to get him to go pee on the potty after that he wouldn't. So I went back online and read some more and decided he wasn't ready and to wait. Several articles and blogs suggested having your child just sit on the potty when they didn't have to go to get them comfortable with the feeling so it wasn't so scary. Every time I even tried Jaxon would have a HUGE fit and freak out and scream so I thought we would never be able to potty train him because I had ruined him for life making him sit on the potty that one time for so long when he was scared.

So I thought I would try again right after he turned 3... well we found out we were moving across the country right then and I figured I would rather not have to deal with a newly potty trained 3 year old for a 42 hour drive - so again... we waited. Then after we got settled in here we were going to do it, then my grandpa passed away and we needed to fly back to Utah for the funeral, so again - I pushed it back.

The night we got back from Utah (which was a Tuesday 9/11/12...that’s right - we flew into Washington D.C. on Sep. 11.... was I nervous? More on that later) - Jaxon was taking a bath and came running out naked and yelled - "mom, dad - I pooped in the potty"! Dan and I looked at each other and both just assumed he pooped in the tub probably - well sure enough when we got in there - he had pooped in the toilet! We both started cheering for him and praising him and telling him what a great job he did and how proud of him we were and we decided to potty train him on Thursday. Now I know that seems weird that we would wait a day, but I also learned online that if you want to have your child potty trained in one day you cannot have ANY distractions - that child needs 100% of your attention all day so we decided to wait until Thursday because Dan only has one class that day and it is in the evening so one of us could be watching Addy while the other totally focused on Jax.

He did GREAT! That morning he pooped on the potty and went pee all day long no problem - he would sometimes go a little in his underwear and then realize and stop and run to the bathroom - it was AWESOME, it wasn't hard at all - we would just make sure we set a 15 min timer and just have him try when it would go off. Every time he went he would get a treat and we let him drink a ton of juice all day long so he had to go a lot. That night we decided to just keep him in his underwear instead of doing a pull up or anything and just see how it went. We made sure to have him not drink anything an hour before we put him to bed and we obviously had him go potty right before we put him down and he woke up that next morning dry!!!

The next day everything was great! We had him pee right when he got up, we would remind him and see if he needed to go if we noticed he hadn't been in a while and he was perfect - no accidents, nothing. We did notice however, that he didn't poop at all that day, which for Jaxon is not normal. He normally goes at LEAST 2 times a day (this is due to the HUGE amount of fruit he takes in daily lol).

That brings us to Saturday, now because I didn't want him to only be able to go on the potty with a seat... I was trying to avoid using one, but something I saw online said that some kids are scared because they feel like they are going to fall in.. or it doesn’t feel secure to them and that making them comfortable will help so I borrowed a seat from my friend Lydia and put his little stool under his feet so he would be really comfortable... he still didn't want to go so that night we decided that we would give him the option to go in a diaper if he wanted so that he wouldn't get constipated and be even more scared to go later because it hurt so bad - we seriously had one diaper left and I was not going to buy more so I wasn't really sure what I was going to do after he pooped in that one and I didn't know if letting him poop in the diaper was a horrible thing to do but I didn't want him getting sick or hurting because of this. ANYWAY - he said he wanted a diaper so we gave him one... he pooped in it and I asked him if he wanted to start wearing diapers again and he said no and that he wanted his underwear so we put that back on and Saturday night he was dry.

Sunday he did great - no pee accidents, but again, he didn't poop - he would just hold it. So after Dan and I talked we decided that we would offer him a diaper again and see what he did (planning on giving him a swim diaper if he said yes LOL). He didn't want to wear it, so we thought that was a good sign so I asked him where he was going to go poop if he didn't want to go in the toilet and if he didn't want to poop in a diaper and he said - "I can go in my underwear". I explained to him that we do not poop in our underwear but if he really wanted to he could so he could see what it felt like. I know this sounds totally weird and crazy but I just felt like he needed to experience "an accident" in his underwear to not want to do it again - and this way, I would know he was going to do it, and I could make sure he didn't get poop everywhere. SIDE NOTE - He would always tell us he needed to go poop - we would go to the potty, he would sit on it for a while and not go, hold it in, say never mind and jump off and go about playing until the urge came again and we would do the same thing so that is how I knew I would know when he was going to poop in his underwear. DONE WITH SIDE NOTE LOL. He told me, mom I have to poop and I said ok go in your underwear so he did. Now I realize this next part is going to make me and Dan sound like horrible parents but we did all of this very lovingly and it worked so I think it is what OUR son needed. After he pooped in his underwear... we made him walk around with it for awhile, he wanted a snack so I had him sit down (I put paper towels under him just in case) and he did not like the feeling of it - then when we said ok lets go take your underwear off and get you cleaned up, he HATED it, some poop got on his leg and he was so grossed out by that and then we had him help Dan wash his underwear out in the toilet. After that we never had a problem. By the way, I do not count that as an accident because we told him to do it haha.

So then the next time he needed to poop he told me, we ran to the potty and we sat there for a while and he didn't go - so instead of putting his underwear back on I just had him running around with nothing on and I actually think that helped because he didn't want to poop on the floor so he would run really fast to the bathroom when he felt like he was going to go - then he finally went on the potty and he didn't want to look at it, he was embarrassed and told me not to look at it or smell it and he was acting sad so I told him it was ok and we talked about why we poop and that after we eat food - out body uses what it needs and then gets rid of the rest. The poop is like garbage and the toilet is like the garbage can (this led to some SERIOUSLY funny conversations after he would eat). I also found a movie online that is so stinking cute/funny but Jaxon loved watching it - so he watched it over and over and over again. The next time he had to poop it was much easier. We sang the song while he was on the potty - and he just went. Then he wanted to look at it because he said he did a daddy poop, a mommy poop, a Jaxon poop, a baby Addison poop, and a Volcano poop so he wanted to see them. After that we have not had any problems with him being scared to go at all!

Oh and the seat thing... that has not been a problem either... I was worried that he wouldn't go poop without it... so if we were out somewhere, he wouldn't go - but that has not been the case, he is fine not using it and he doesn't use it at home anymore either - I think it was just a good tool at the beginning to get him used to sitting on the potty and feeling comfortable.

Someone asked me if I thought it was worth it changing diapers longer and waiting until he was ready. YES YES AND YES! I think I would have had a harder time cleaning up pee or poop accidents all the time...so for me it was TOTALLY worth it - and even though it may sound like it was a hassle to get him to go poop on the potty... it really wasn't that hard, just a few days of working with him and talking him through it but I would take that and do that over having poop accidents all the time so FOR ME AND DAN AND JAXON... this was perfect for us.