Potty training - the results

This will make more sense [only slightly!!] if you have read this post

Day 1.

My sister in law, the Drama Queen offered to take the boys for a sleepover. We offered to pack the big boy pants so that she could start off the potty training. She didn't exactly decline, it was more a case of laughing and walking away.

Day 2.

Everyone knows that you don't start a new regime on a Sunday. Monday is a much better time to start these things. No, we were not putting it off because we were scared!

Day 3.

Ok, no more procrastination. This is the real deal. As soon as the boys woke up, we had a family meeting in the bedroom and explain that they are big boys now and they are going to start wearing big boy pants. The early signs are promising and they danced on the bed with delight at the news. We tell them that they have to let us know when they need to go to the toilet and they repeat the mantra with the appropriate earnestness. We took them downstairs, gave them breakfast [foregoing the usual morning bottle] and braced ourselves for what was to come.

9.30 to 10.30 - we asked the boys if the want to go to the potty approximately 473 times. The answer was always "no". It seemed like a very long morning waiting for something to happen. I can easily remember a dozen Saturday mornings when we had changed half a dozen nappies by now.

11.00 - we had the first incident of wet clothing but it was only a spilled drink.

11.20 - we sat them both on the potty, mostly because we were bored waiting. They both "tried" to go the toilet [sat there and grunted theatrically] so we gave them a little treat for trying.

11.25 - Hannah goes to the shop for supplies to get us through our house arrest.

11.26 - Monkey Boy has the first accident of the day

11.30 - giving them a treat for trying proved to be a big mistake. Fat Chops "tried" 7 times over twenty minutes without producing any urine.

12.00 - we managed to convince ourselves that they might be dehydrated since we cut out their morning bottle. Guilt overrided common sense so we gave it to them at about noon. Common sense drops in and kicks our asses. Monkey Boy wets himself four times over the next half hour.

Every time they wet, we told them that they have to tell Mammy and Daddy when they need a wee. They repeated the mantra diligently. Even when the wee is running down their legs, they repeated the mantra!

1.30 - Fat Chops didn't warm to the idea of peeing somewhere other than a nappy and was still refusing point blank to pee. Not even in his pants. This removes any lingering doubts that he has inherited his mothers stubborn streak.

2.00 - They wet every single pair of shorts they own and were running around the house in their big boy pants and a t-shirt at this point. We gave serious consideration to putting their nappies back on when Fat Chops asked to sit on the potty again. The pressure on his bladder must have gotten too much for him and we finally have one in the potty. We cheered as if he has arrived back at Dublin Airport with an Olympic gold medal in his hand luggage.

Needless to say, he loves the attention and they both sit on the potty every two minutes for the rest of the day. At one point MB has a nose bleed and I can't help thinking that it was caused by straining too hard to pee just because he wanted another piece of chocolate.

There were one or two more accidents during the afternoon and evening but we made progress. I couldn't wait to put on a nappy them that night so that I could finally relax a little.

Day 4.
Since the boys spent most of the previous day in varying levels of dampness, we decided to throw them in the bath. They squatted down as soon as they got in and seemed to think that we won't notice that they were peeing in the bath. We sit back to watch them play with the bubbles but a couple of minutes into it I spot a small floater behind Fat Chops in the bath. Then another. Then a bigger one. Hannah whipped him up and put him on the pot where he proceeded to take an ENORMOUS poo. He refused to poo yesterday but this looks like he had been saving it up for a couple of weeks, not just a couple of days. We spent all of yesterday practising our fake enthusiasm for each filled potty but this deserves an Oscar. Despite our burning noses and streaming eyes, we celebrate with gusto.
The rest of the day follows a similar pattern to yesterday. Every couple of minutes the boys announce that they need a wee wee. They actually urinate on maybe 10% of the occassions that they sit on the potty. Any time that Fat Chops squats and fails to produce the goods, he announces ruefully that "wee wee go bed".
The difference today is that there are only a couple of isolated incidents of wetting themselves. In case you didn't already know, the TV is the devil. The only times that they have an accident is when the TV has them in a trance and they can't tear themselves away. Forced to turn the TV off, we now have to entertain them too. Work is a doddle compared to this.

Day 5
They really have adapted well. While I was attending to Monkey Boy, Fat Chops came in to the bathroom and said something about poo poo. I finished with MB as quick as possible and went to lift FC on to the toilet but instead he pulled me out to the potty in the kitchen where he had made another XXXL turd and pulled his trousers up all by himself.

Although, they have needed help pulling their trousers up most of the time. Yesterday, FC pulled his most of the way but left his ding-a-ling dangling over the top of the waist band. I made the mistake of laughing as I went to tidy him up and when I turned back around MB had adjusted his underwear so that he was swinging a bit more freely too. Generally, they hare acting like they just found out that they have a penis and are so happy about it that they hold it protectively for most of the day.

Finally, the big news. THEY WENT THE WHOLE DAY WITHOUT AN ACCIDENT. I'm not naive enough [despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary published in this blog!] to think that they are fully trained and won't ever have any more accidents but this is a big deal. Not only have they figured out the potty training but they have the incentive scheme sussed too. Why go for one big pee and get one treat when you can go for six smaller pees and get six treats?

Reasons for Optimism

It’s time for a little experiment. Myself and Hannah are taking leave from work for the next fortnight with a view to potty training the boys. It’s a daunting task, I won’t lie but overall I am pretty optimistic that it will go well. I’m posting this as the before picture and in two weeks I am going to post the after picture and see how close to reality my prediction of events were.

Hannah actually went as far as saying that she was looking forward to it the other day but I suspect that had more to do with the kick she got from buying cute little dinosaur adorned underwear for them.

The case for them potty training quickly;
• They have inherited Hannah’s OCD. They HATE being dirty. This has to be a good thing.
• Assuming that they will love the dinosaur pants, they will really HATE getting those wet.
• They have been pretty desperate for approval the last few weeks. At least four times a day [and more on weekends] they will turn to one of us and ask “Fat Chops good boy?” Once we make it clear that we aren’t all that chuffed about mopping up pee then they will likely try to keep on our good side.
• We’ve invested in every aid we could think of. In addition to the dinosaur pants we have a Thomas the Tank Engine toilet seat, bubbles, Frisbees and a paddling pool as treats for when they successfully use the potty. Last time I checked, bribery was still a valid currency for toddlers.
• Washing their hands makes them strangely happy. This is not unrelated to the first bullet. It should help them get into the routine though.
• Fat Chops has a real independent streak. On the rare occasions that he is not looking for approval he is saying “I do it.” So now is the chance for him to do it all by himself.
• There have been two pee related incidents in the past few weeks. Once, partially due to parental neglect, Monkey Boys nappy was filled to the point that it overflowed. The child hit the roof when the pee ran down his leg. The other time, he was about to get into the bath and dribbled a bit of pee onto the carpet. The OCD kicked in and he insisted on wiping it up with baby wipes.

The case for leaving them in nappies until they are teenagers;

• Despite our best efforts to sit them on the potty when they are getting into the bath, they have never actually peed in it. The only time we have caught any pee in the potty is if they were trying to fill the bath themselves and we threw a potty under the stream. [I could probably do a whole post on their insistence on peeing in the bath before they sit down in it. Why would anyone do such a thing??!!]
• They are very, very stubborn. If they decide that they don’t want to do it, there will be a battle of wills. It is not just OCD that they have inherited from their mother so if they refuse to train there will be a battle of wills [like this]. If anyone is looking for me during that battle, I will be cowering behind the couch!
• You could sneak a full orchestra into the living room [wishful thinking that we could fit more than a violinist and a couple of oboes into our living room] and play an entire concerto while they are watching TV and they won’t take their eyes off Fireman Sam.*
• Change is bad. They like their routines and won’t want to change.

Wish us luck, we start on Sunday and I'll post the results in two weeks time.


*We should light fires in the bottom of the toilet for them to put out by peeing and take advantage of the Fireman Sam obsession.