We had a very successful first week in which I did not change one poopy diaper or clean up more than three accidents! I was very pleased with our son’s potty training success. However, I was not one hundred percent sure that using the potty was an established habit for our son.
As week two of potty training began I had my fingers crossed that we would not take any steps backwards in our potty training progress. Our son still seemed really into using the potty and he found his chocolate rewards very motivating. Sometimes he would go potty and squeeze out a little trickle just to get a piece of chocolate.
We did have an interesting issue come up in our second week of potty training. Our son went to use the potty during breakfast and my husband was on the verge of telling our son that he could not have his chocolate until he finished his eggs. I felt that his potty training rewards should never be withheld for other issues. The rule was then established that our son would get his reward for going potty no matter what he was in the middle of doing; he would not have to complete a different and unrelated task to get his reward for using the potty. Establishing this rule has made our potty training efforts easier and, in my opinion, more effective.
One major hurdle that we needed to tackle in the second week of potty training was going out wearing underwear. For the first week of potty of training, I put our son in a diaper for our outings whether it be visiting grandparents, going grocery shopping, or going to church; I put him in a diaper just in case we could not get him to a bathroom in time.
(To be continued …)