Potty Training - Take 2, and 3

We had tried potty training for about a day back around Easter when Kyler got his potty chair and some underwear. At that point, it became obvious that he didn't understand how to "turn it on." He would sit forever and not go and then be playing and oblivious to the fact that he was peeing.

At the beginning of June after he turned two, and had been showing signs of discomfort when he had a wet or dirty diaper. So I thought we would give it another shot. First I tried a method I read on potty training in a day where one of the things you do is run back and forth 10 times from the spot they had an accident to the potty chair saying "no potty on the floor, potty on the potty chair." This did catch his attention but he thought it was funny and didn't take it as a lesson. In fact, the second accident he has was when he was bare bottomed and he was smiling as he peed right in my kitchen. So I decided enough was enough and ended up scolding him and making him sit in time out. I know you're not really supposed to do that but I was pretty confident he knew exactly what he was doing.

At that point I decided to go back to the method I had originally tried around Easter. I basically tried to pay complete attention to him and look for signs that he needs to go. Once you do this, it's fairly easy to tell but you don't have much reaction time. I showed him his options for using the potty (his little one or a stool to stand on to hit the big toilet). He wanted his shirt off so he could see his equipment. Before I knew it he was running around in the nude... I figured whatever I am getting frustrated and tired at this point. He would stand by the door, then start saying "potty chair potty chair potty chair" while running to the bathroom and sort of pretending to go. He did this probably five times. I thought he was still thinking of me running back and forth with him. I was in the kitchen getting some stuff out for lunch when I looked over and he was standing up on the stool peeing like a big guy on the toilet. I got super excited and praised him like crazy, gave him his two jelly beans, and ran outside to get Brett for some additional praises. I continued to remind him anytime he would stand still for more than five seconds to go potty and poopy in the potty chair. He sat on the potty chair quite often and it would take a while but he would eventually go occasionally. He never did poop on the potty chair though, only once in the dog water bowl. We got busy once again (bought a house and moved) and weren't at home enough to reinforce this so ended up back in diapers.

In July, I took his diaper off one day to see how he would do. First thing that morning he peed in the potty chair on his own twice and then he pooped in it. We were so excited and he was very proud of himself. He kept asking for a diaper on though because he didn't want to be bare bottomed. I put underwear on him but every time I did that he would have an accident because he would forget that it was underwear rather than a diaper while he was playing. Day after day though, he would be accident free if he was bare bottomed. We sent him to daycare one day with underwear and they said he would not even go near the potty chair. Bummer! I also realized that I think he knows what he's doing when he wets his underwear because he would wait until I stepped outside or something like that before he would have an accident, and it would be right after I asked if he needed to go. It may just be a sign that he's not quite ready to make that big boy step yet. I think we'll give it a little more time and see if he's ready again.