The Potty Diaries

Man. How many times have I asked myself, "Why did I ever decide to potty train Caleb this week?!" I know I'm not supposed to compare kids...but Ethan was strangely easy to potty train. Just a few pee pee accidents and we were done. Then there is my sweet Caleb. Here is week one of potty training. I think there will be several more to come.(The potty chair he wanted...couldn't find it anywhere!)

Day 1: We went to the store and bought a potty chair and underwear and went cold turkey. He had about 10 pee pee accidents and one poo accident. By that night I thought he was clearly not ready and wanted to give up.

(The potty chair we ended up with. Still cool but he isn't really into Cars.)

Day 2: It's a miracle. He woke up with a dry pull-up and we went straight to the potty...and he peed! I don't think I made him sit long enough because he had an accident about 5 minutes later. He still refused to use the potty chair to poo.


Day 3: He woke up dry again and went straight to the potty and peed a lot then I put him in his underwear for the day. About 30 minutes later he finally pooed...in his underwear. Disgusting! I won't go into any detail but it was a bad scene. I tried to stay positive with him and told him where he needed to go next time and he looked at me like I was crazy. The rest of the day he was accident free in his underwear. Then we decided to go to Six Flags. He has a huge fear of using public restrooms. Just walking toward the door will send him into a huge screaming fit. So I decided to put a pull-up on. I asked him several times at Six Flags if he needed to go pee pee. He said he needed his Cars potty. Then we went out to eat. I tried to force him into the restroom and showed him that no one was in there so it wouldn't be loud. No flushing. It resulted in screaming. Later, he came up to me at the restaurant and whispered in my ear that he went pee pee and I needed to change him. Ugh! I told him that he would have to wait until we got home and that's why he should've gone in the restroom when I took him. As soon as we got home he went straight to the bathroom and peed a ton.

Day 4: Woke up a tiny bit wet then went straight to the bathroom and peed a lot. Stayed dry the whole day and we even went to the store with his regular underwear on. Once we got home he had a poo accident. Gross. I was a little tougher on him and we had another discussion on where he is supposed to do that. He looked like he didn't care.

Day 5: Woke up pretty wet but went straight to the potty and peed a lot. We were planning on being out of the house most of the day so I opted for a pull-up. We went to the movies and he seemed uncomfortable like he needed to pee but he refused to go to the restroom. Then we went to a restaurant. He was really cranky and didn't want to eat...or go to the restroom. I had to take him out while Mondo and Ethan finished eating because he was screaming. He fell asleep on the way home so maybe he was partly tired. We woke him up about 30 minutes later and his pull-up was wet. I put him on the potty then changed him into another pull-up. Then we went to Six Flags. After we were there for about 45 minutes he had about a 10 minute screaming fit. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. Then I noticed he was sitting weird in the stroller. He had peed. I took him to the restroom (which was nasty) and had to take off his shoes and pants to put another pull up on. I was so frustrated at that moment I told him he was going back in diapers because Mommy was not going to do this every day. (Of course, I now feel extremely guilty about that.) The rest of the Six Flags trip was uneventful. We went home, he peed a lot in his potty, then we put his regular underwear back on. I could tell that he needed to poo but he refused. He went to bed without going so we will see what happens tomorrow!

So in summary, he is doing well...with the peeing...at home. He is probably 99% trained in peeing at home. I guess the poo with just take a while. The main issue I have with him is his crazy fear of public restrooms. I really don't know how to make him get over that. He has been that way his whole little life. Every time I take Ethan into a public restroom Caleb cries and freaks out. This isn't a new development. Any suggestions???