Brennan's Potty Training Update...

So if you read the title to this post and are still reading, you should know to expect poo and pee references. If you don't, then that's just silliness.

So here goes:

Full out potty training began on Sunday with me in one of my not uncommon "Mommy Rages" where I'd had it with Brennan peeing through yet another pair of Pull-ups. They might be fine for some, but not my kid. Too many packages of those have been WASTED (literally) in this process. I had been speaking to Bren about the "Diaper Fairy" for a while to get him ready to say buh-bye to those blasted things and so I grabbed my "Fairy" bag which is a golden sparkly gift bag that we used for the Paci Fairy earlier this year and gathered up all his leftover diapers and pull-ups and hid the rest in Alex's closet for when it's time to go through this headache all over again.

Bren happily put the bag outside and went on about his day. I had training pants and the plastic underwear leftover from his RotaVirus fun when he was 10 mos. old. The training pants at the time were rather large, but he needed to be "aired out" due to the HORRID yeast infection/diaper rash he got at the time from all the diarrhea. I bought them big on purpose so I could have them for just this purpose when the time came.

Well, those turned out to be a HUGE mistake too. He wet those with the same FLAIR he had in wetting his diapers.

We did this Sunday into Monday and then I got smart and started to actually research this, looking up a variety of "Potty Training in 1 day" type books. I found one that was titled, "How to Potty Train your child in LESS than a day" and since I'd already just HAD it and having to wait an ENTIRE day to make any progress was just TOO MUCH, I decided I'd further check into the "LESS THAN" book.

I read the reviews and one Blessed parent was gracious enough to give a greatly detailed review and included the name of the method used and that the book was printed originally in the 70's for Stay-At-Home-Mommy types. Hmm. I'm a SAHM so he might have something here. He was a SAHD (Daddy) and wrote about the luck he'd had with this method and that it was designed with developmentally challenged kids in mind and he also wrote about the stubbornness factor of his son and I just felt all warm and fuzzy inside, like I'd just hit the lottery. YAHTZEE!!!

So I "Googled" the method, Azrin-Foxx if anyone else is desperate too!--and the first entry on Google was what I clicked on. There it was. The brief yet descriptive PLAN for Potty Training. To some it might seem like the advice is obvious, but you MUST take into account MY background with this: I'm a CAT OWNED HUMAN BEING. I bring a new kitten into my home, show it WHERE the litter box is, put it IN the litter box and take it's front paws and scrape them around in the kitty litter, the kitten thinks it's great fun and within less than 4 seconds starts scratching around in the litter itself, and within 5 mins. after the "novelty" has worn off the kitten does his/her business, hops out of the litter and while skittering off to explore other areas of its new home, it takes one little sniff over it's shoulder and winks at me like, "I got it. Thanks." Badda-bing, Badda-boom. D-O-N-E!

As independent and thus "cat-like" as Brennan is, he's not THAT cat-like. *SIGH* If only....

So I decided to test out a few of the methods mentioned on the site and the transformation has been MIRACULOUS! It said to NOT ask the child if he needs to go potty until much farther along in the process and to ask instead, "Are you wet or dry?" repeatedly and praise him when he's dry so he gets the idea and to reprimand him when he's wet. None of this touchy-feely, "oh you soiled yourself you sweet thing what a treasure you are and look at that precious poopy in your underwear just try to make it to the potty next time my darling perfect child anything you do is just amazing and awesome and you are never wrong and mommy will never tell you you're naughty or that you shouldn't poop in your pants because your self-esteem is so precious and in the snap of a finger could just be wrong and then that would reflect badly on me because if you're unhappy I'm a terrible mother" CRAPOLA! It didn't say to be mean, just to reprimand so the child would know that going in his pants was wrong and NOT the desired behaviour and then to demonstrate to the child using a doll what he/she SHOULD be doing.

THAT has made all the difference! Bren now knows he's NOT to pee or poop in his diaper and when he did have an accident, we did ask him if he should do that in his underwear or on the potty and he'd answer "Potty" and we informed him that peeing and pooping in his underwear is yucky and messy--2 things that absolutely HORRIFY him on any given day. This will NOT work with Alex when the time comes as he relishes in his scuz and mess, but Bren's a very OCD-like, neat child so we're playing to his compulsion to be clean at ALL times and it's working!

I did fret and worry about his ability to process this information during the night so I put a pull-up on him that night and told him to make sure the nighttime pull-up still had its stars on the front. They disappear when the child wets himself. I go into his room yesterday morning and he cheerily and ENTHUSIASTICALLY declared that his stars were gone and even clapped for himself. Several mental dope slaps to myself later, I managed to tell him that was NOT the desired outcome and last night I FEARFULLY and HORRIFYINGLY put him to bed in JUST his thin little character underwear.

Well, I tried to put him to bed. He asked for a pull-up and I told him that he wouldn't be getting one and that if he made a mess, it would get in his underwear, his Pajama bottoms and even his sheet (I drew an imaginary big SPOT near his butt) and also that Snuggie, Lovey, Pooh, Giraffe, Klappar (his polar bear) and Blankie would get messy too. I have never seen this kid so quickly process and understand something!

He apparently got the hint and scurried out of bed and pulled his pants down and sat there for over 1/2 an hour till he finally peed in his potty. Then he helped me clean that up and was about to hop back into bed when he thought better of it and said, "No Me Go Potty!" I told him he just went and to quit stalling and get into bed. He gave me a LOOK that said to me that I didn't want to press the "stall" issue lest there be HUGE and disgusting consequences we would both have to live with and deal with at some point either in the middle of the night or the next morning.

I dropped it, left the room b/c he seems to have better luck when Mamma's NOT trying to watch the "pot boil" or the boy pee in said pot as it were. A little over 10 mins. later I hear him exclaim, "Me p-- Potty!" I thought he'd said "pee" but that wasn't so. I get into the hallway and he says, "Me BIG (said in a 3 yr. old DEEP voice--where he got THAT I have no idea) POOP POTTY!!!"

And yes, yes he HAD pooped BIG in his potty. So Mamma helped him dispose of it properly, we washed our hands till they were raw, and then he was all set for bed and didn't protest.

This morning was VICTORIOUS! I heard a knock on our door and woke up. We don't shut our door at night. Bren curteously does that for us so we won't be bothered by his antics and explorations in the morning. Bren has figured out BOTH of our baby gates and how to open them so to THWART his little adventurous self, Vin found a trailor tongue-latch lock that takes a key, drilled a hole in the gate and stuck it through so that he CANNOT open the gate--that is until he figures out how to stack various objects from his room to be able to reach the keys that Vin nailed up high on the wall and then it will be no problem for him since he gets the "key unlocking things" concept and has since he was 15 mos. old and was using a set of unusable keys at his Great Gramy's to try to lock/unlock her doors.

Anyway, I opened the door to find a bottom-naked boy hopping around in the hallway saying, "Me PEED! Me PEED BIG (again deep voice)!" I looked and he was right. I didn't know THAT is how much his little bladder can hold, but apparently it does and can. We dumped that out and I asked him where his PJ bottoms and underwear were and he said, "No wet." The exciting part about it is that although they were wet, they were JUST wet b/c he woke himself up and went ON his potty IMMEDIATELY! WAY TO GO BRENNAN!!! He's such a smart little kid!

He started to not make it to the potty this afternoon, but realized it and only got the teeniest bit of pee on his underwear and sweatpants but finished up on the potty so he's getting there and realizing THAT sensation. It just takes time to completely GET IT and he's made AMAZING progress in just a day and a half! Soooo PROUD of him!

I'm having to work on my henpecking b/c he is so independent and I even asked him last night if he liked me telling him to sit on his potty and he very seriously said, "No me Help" which was his way of saying, "No. I want to do this myself Mamma." Where other kids say, "Me do" Bren says, "Me help" so I made him a promise that I would back off but that he had to promise to try to get better about going to the potty. The method says to have the children clean themselves up when they make a mess and to get them to re-dress themselves in clean underwear and pants and so I told him that he would have to clean himself up if he poops or pees himself and he has been. He's managed to put his underwear on backwards twice and is currently pantless b/c he didn't make it that far, but he's not shy of telling me when he's cold and so if he does tell me that, I just tell him to go get pants and socks. He actually reacts better to doing all that himself than to have me do it for him. My baby is growing up! I'm so excited for him and this new adventure...not to mention how wonderful it will be to "reduce his carbon footprint" and all that jazz!

That's the latest for Sir Brennan.

Love to all,

Shannon :)