I laid in bed with my eyes shut hoping that Zander would go back to sleep. I felt guilty for not running in quickly and putting him on the potty for his morning pee, but today I could barley open my eyes let alone jump out of bed.
By 7:50am Zander was on the potty and happily drinking his sippy cup of milk. After a good 10 minuets we were off to the kitchen to get ourselves some breakfast. No, Zander didn't go in the potty but I totally didn't expect him to considering it took me a while to get to him today.
We went on with our typical morning routine : Zander turns the TV and ps3 on and whines until I put a cartoon on, we eat breakfast at the table, and then we head back to the living room to watch more cartoons and read books.
By 8:35 Zander had drank his cup of milk, so I refilled him and we attempted potty trip #2. Nothing.
9am comes along and we are hanging out in Zanders bedroom when I noticed he was doing an interesting and new little dance move. I immediately asked if he had to go poop and Zander responded by running to the potty. I was convinced it was a poop because if I don't wake up to change a poopy diaper first thing in the morning, it's always the diaper right after. Still no luck.
Because Zander was up so early today he was ready for a nap by 9:45. I put a cloth diaper on him and laid him down. Within 10 minuets Zander had gone poop. I knew he had to go, silly boy! At 11:30 I put Zander for a nap, for real this time! He slept a solid 2 hours and I cleaned the floors and caught up on youtube and facebook. Oh how I love nap time.
When Zander got up from his nap at 1:30 I put him on the potty and gave him a drink of water. No success but we had fun playing with some toys and singing.
After lunch we went back to the potty. Now I'm still not sure if he ended up peeing or not. I swear I heard something, but Zander didnt say or do or really react in anyway, and the bath fauct was dripping.
At 3pm while getting dressed and ready to go out I noticed Zander doing the same little dance move. We ran to the potty and Zander seemed really excited, but it lasted about a minuet and then he wanted off.
From 3:30-4:30 we were shopping at babies r us for a new potty. I was hatting his cars 3-in-1 potty and so was Brad. I'm thinking Zander felt the same way, the only thing he really liked about it was that it made a race car noise. Anyways, we ended up buying the Fisher Price Froggy potty. In all the videos on youtube I had watched about potty training, whether it be tips, tricks, or even day in the life videos, 90% of these people had this potty. So, we got it. And guess what? It's a hit! I'll get into a little more detail about it later.
At dinner we put the potty on the table chair and let Zander sit on it. Within 2 minuets he had peed! We were so excited! We paused dinner, brought the pee to the toilet, and let Zander dump and flush it. I think it was an over-all excited and hopfully encouraging moment for him.
After dinner we got a phone call saying that Brad's neckelace had been repaired and we were able to pick it up tonight. So we put Zander on the potty, and drove to the mall to pick it up. We ended up being there longer than planned and while at Wal-Mart ended up having an accident. Opps. Not only did we not make a big deal about it, we forgot to bring the portable potty with us. Completely our fault. However, speaking of Wal-Mart, we did pick up some more boxer breifs for him. The smallest size we found them in was a 2T-3T. The weight range starts at 27lbs and I know they will be big, but I wanted more in our "stash".
When we got home we put the potty beside the couch and guess what else? Zander went to it all by himself and sat on it. Not for long, a few seconds, but then he did it again, and again. He definatly did not do that with the cars potty and I'm so happy to see that he is confident enough to sit on it himself and feel so proud.
Before we knew it, it was way past his bedtime. At 8:20pm we called it a night.
We are only on day 2 of potty training and I have to say its going well emotionally wise. Zander likes if not loves the potty and not once have we had to force him to go on it or have him cry while being on it. We might not have had much success yet, but maybe that means that we need to be constantly working on getting fluids into him. I'm sooo glad we decided to go with the Fisher Price frog potty. It was a little pricey at $25, but the design is so awesome. Zander seems so much more comfortbale on it, he stays on it longer, the guard is incrediable, AND he peed in it! I think that not only is this an amazing potty but it will be a keeper for future children.
Potty training is something I have been avoiding for a few months now. At 15 Months old Zander started showing signs of being ready to potty train. Keep in mind that as you read this, that every child is different when it comes to being potty trained and each child shows their own signs of being ready to be trained.
The first thing we noticed was Zander would grab the front of his diaper while peeing, and then after he would either gasp and put his hands high in the air, or he would go ohhh, which at the time stood for uh oh.
The second thing we noticed was when he went #2 he would go somewhere alone ( ex. behind the curtain, in the kitchen beside the fridge) and do his duty. When he was done he would then become fussy.
The last thing we noticed was his strong interest in the potty. I've never been the kind of parent to lock Zander outside the bathroom door while going to the bathroom. If he wants to come in, then he is more than welcome to join me. I'm not saying I don't enjoy my privacy, but it pays off when your toddler knows what a toilet is used for and becomes very comfortable with sitting on it and the sound of the flush.
So, here we are at the age of 18 Months and 10 days starting the potty
training process. But I didn't just wake up this morning and randomly
decided that today was the day. No way! I took about an hour last night
getting everything ready. The first thing I got out was of course his
potties. Like I had mentioned above, Zander has been on the toilet before. So the seat that goes on it is nothing new to him. He is very comfortable with it and the guard in the front is AMAZING! The pottty on the floor is fairly new to him. He has seen it before but never used it. It's a 3-in-1 potty which is kinda cool, but judging the guard on it, I wont be liking it too much.
After I got the potties all set up for the morning, I got a bin from Zanders toy room and filled it with small toys, but the toys that I know he is really into right now. In the bin I have 2 small cardboard books, a few pieces of mega blocks along with a mega blocks dog, a doodle pad, a tooth brush, a whopie cushion, and a cell phone. Small enough to fit into the bin, yet extremely entertaining. Now I know a lot of people say that distractions are bad while potty training, but I think that when you are dealing with an 18 Month old, distractions are something for them to focus on. After all, they usually are playing while going in their diapers 90% of the time. As for the bin we keep it either on the edge of the bathtub or beside the sink.
Now that I have the bathroom set up, I had to think about what else would be useful. Books? Totally! Zander got these books for Christmas so we have been reading these to him a few times a week. His all time favorite is the Sesame Street book. Its simple, yet gets the point across. It doesn't have a lot of words in it, therefore I'm able to read it 2-3 times before he gets tired of sitting. I love this book just as much as he does.
Next on the list was of course training pants and underwear. Now, maybe it's where I live but I was having the hardest time finding training pants locally. The only ones I was able to find were the George brand which I found at Wal- Mart. Being a cloth diapering family I knew we had some local cloth diaper shops that sold trainers, but they were just way out of my budget. I decided to go with the George brand trainers. I bought 2 packs. Then I moved onto underwear. This was harder than I thought. Underwear style or boxer brief style? I talked to Brad about it and we decided together to go with the boxer briefs. From Brads point of view he says that they are more comfortable and provide more of an air flow. Perfect. From my point of view, its a whole different feel to Zander, nothing like a diaper would feel like and maybe providing us less accidents. Our only problem was finding his size. Again, maybe its where I'm living but the smallest size we could find was a 3. Zander is a super skinny toddler and those would just fall off him. We decided to go to a childrens clothing store, Bonnie Togs, where they sell popular brands such as Carters and Osh Gosh. We landed ourselfs 2 packs of Osh Gosh size 2 boxer briefs. Perfect.
Lastly, I needed something to clean up the mess with. I'm expecting a ton of accidents and I know I don't have enough towels to do the job. So I got creative and pulled out some old prefolds. Again, we are a cloth diapering family, so it's only natural we have some outgrown diapers in our house. I have 12, but was only able to find about 8. Still enough to do the job. These bad boys were made to hold pee, why not keep them at work by cleaning up accidents?! Once I found enough I just re purposed a container and plopped them in there for a convenient and temporary storage. Hmm, speaking of storage, where am I going to store all these soiled trainers, boxers, and prefolds? I think I know. I pulled out my homemade wet bag. I used to use it for weekend trips away from home with our cloth diapers, but today and the rest of this potty training journey, it will be used to hold all that lovely stuff.
Now the only thing left to show you is where we are storing the clean
training pants and boxer briefs. We have them in his top drawer of his
dresser. The most convenient and obvious of course.
Alright, so now that you know how I have everything set up, lets get on with our first day of potty training.
Zander woke up about 9:28am. I rushed out of bed and hurried him to the potty. I let him pick which one he wanted to use, naturally he chose the big potty because that's what he is comfortable with. But, he didn't go. I wasn't quick enough and that's OK. I know there will be plenty of opportunities for him to go in the potty today. As long as we have one successful pee in the potty by the end of the day, I will feel like I have accomplished something today.
Zander spent some time on the potty and then asked to get off. I didn't make a big deal about it. I took him off and we went to put his first pair of big boy boxers on. I know potty training is going to be stressful, and I know Zander will get that vibe off of me and become unsettled himself. I don't want him to be forced to be on the potty because naturally that will only lead him to screaming and stressing himself out over something so silly. After all, there is no law saying a child has to be potty trained at 18 months right.
Remember how I said we had a hard time finding size 2 boxer briefs? If you look at the picture above you can tell these are ready to fall off, and trust me, they did a few times. So what I ended up doing was folding down the elastic part and they held up much better.
At 11: 30am I put Zander down for his morning nap, 3:30pm comes around and I just had to wake him up! Then the afternoon fun begins because Brad is home from work!
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After getting Zander up from his nap I put him on the big potty as soon as possible. He didn't last long, maybe a minuet, but hes a very cuddly person when he wakes up and throwing him onto a hard cold potty was not on his to do list.
After cuddles and saying hi to daddy, we sat him down for lunch. I came up with a brilliant idea this morning that I have failed to mention. I put his 3-in-1 potty on one of our chairs and sat him on it as a booster. That way, if he had to pee, it was all good and a lot less messy. Of course, he didn't end up peeing, but the though and idea was there right?!
Even though we had Zander distracted by eating his lunch, he quickly wanted down. This is nothing new. You see, Zander is the kind of child that eats on the go. I have no idea why, because both Brad and I sit and eat at the table. Basically to make a long story short here, we needed re enforcement. Brad. Between Brad and Itsy Bitsy Spider, Zander was able to finish most of his lunch. But still no pee.
At a little after 4pm, we had to do some running around. Grabbing some batteries from the dollar store, and grabbing a few ingredients for dinner from the grocery store. We pondered. A lot! I wanted to leave Zander at home with Brad. But Brad wasn't feeling confident enough to do it on his own just yet. So, after a lot of thinking we did it. We went out. Without diapers. Brad put him on the potty one last time before leaving, and I packed an extra pair of loose fitting sweat pants, a pair of boxers, and some socks. We had Zander already dressed in a pair of sweats. I wasn't able to take any pictures, but we got back home about 4:45pm and had no accidents! We were lucky. Very lucky. But now that I think back on it, I did forget one thing. A prefold. What if Zander did have an accident? Sure I had the extra clothes, but what would I have cleaned it up with?
After dinner Brad put Zander on the potty, and guess what?! He went pee! Not much but enough to make us happy and praise him like crazy!
Once the big congrats was over we went back to our night routine where Brad gave Zander a tubby and I set his pj's out. I didn't want him wearing pants until it was time for him to go to bed so I just set out his shirt and a pair of boxers.
Close to bed time, about 7:20pm after Zander had his entire sippy of milk, we tried again. We let him pick a toy from his bin and he chomped on his toothbrush and played with daddy.
By 7:30pm Zander was in bed and out for the night. Today was a breeze. He spoiled us and I'm totally not expecting tomorrow or any other day to be anywhere close to as easy as today was. In fact, it kind of worries me that he held his pee for that long in between his nap and bedtime. But all in all, we accomplished today's goal. He went pee in the potty once and he did awesome. Tomorrow is a new day, another new adventure and a whole new challange!
Check out our video of A Day In The Life Of Potty Training - Day 1
I've never done a blog before, so to tell you the truth I have absolutely no idea where to even start. Well, of course a little introduction came to mind, so I guess I will just get to it, eh?
Lets start with the name. Beccnhood. It's really pretty simple actually. Becc, standing for Becca, a short form for Rebecca, my name. n, being the slang word for and. Hood, meaning, toddler hood, childhood, teenage hood, parent hood, etc. Zander wont be a toddler forever so I needed a name that would grow with us. So now lets get to the boring stuff.
My name is Rebecca(we kind of just went through this I know), but most people call me Becca. Two lucky children call me their Aunty, and one lucky toddler calls me his Mommy. I'm 21 years old, which means that if I ever wanted to go to the USA, I'd be legal to drink there! But here in Canada you just have to be 19 :). I am a SAHM to my amazing son, Zander. And although a lot of people may look down on that, I love it. My hobbies are vlogging, photography, and hopefully blogging! In case you were wondering (or maybe not) I have a youtube account. It's beccanbrad1. We don't have very many subscribers right now, but maybe in the future we will! Now, you are probably wondering who this "we" is. That would be Brad. Also known as Uncle and Daddy. Brad is 23 and a full time working man. He brings home the money, and at the end of the day he has a nice hot homemade cooked meal on the table waiting for him :)
Now for Zander. He is 18 months, 24lbs, 34" tall, and made of pure cuteness and currently fighting off a virus we call "the terrible two attitude".
A closing statement? I wanted to start a blog for a few reasons. The first being, I don't always have time to vlog. Or sometimes I just dont wanna get dressed and put makeup on to look good for the camera. Blogging can involve being in your pajamas, looking like crap, and still being able to say what you wanted to say, or should i say type? Another reason is for something to look back on. When I'm old, I might loose my sight (hopefully not, but you never know). But I might still be able to hear! Wouldn't it be nice to sit back in your lazy boy all snuggled up in a blanket and have someone read to you about the adventures you had when your kids are growing up?
Well that about sums it up. I hope you follow us on this journey through life and parenthood. Thanks for stopping by :)
