potty success!

I got a wild hair and decided to potty-train Jed the beginning of July. I was a little worried about him being ready, but finally I decided to just take the plunge. At one point, he had been telling us pretty regularly that he was wet or dirty, but that stopped, and he became so resistant to having his diaper changed that every change was a pitched battle. I told him that if he wouldn't happily let us change him, he was going to learn to go in the potty.

I know some families just skip a small potty and go straight to the real commode, but Jed seems to like doing his own thing, and with our trip coming up, I thought it might be nice to have a small potty for road-side emergencies. We tried to get Jed to choose a potty at the store, but he really didn't care, so we went with the Froggy Potty. We got some Skittles for a potty treat, I pulled out a bunch of stickers so Jed would have a way to show Daddy all his good progress during the day, and Jed ran around without any clothes for a day or two.

I'm almost afraid to tell you how well he did, like if I acknowledge the ease of it, I'll somehow curse us and he'll regress. But Jed was totally trained to pee in the Froggy Potty after the first day! Poop took a little while longer, mostly because he can't hold still long enough to sit on the potty and get some action. After two weeks of successful poopage, though, I'm proud to say he's got the hang of it.

Jed loves his stickers! He would proudly stick them on, then rearrange them, wear them on his shirt for a while, put them back on the chart... I need to remember what an awesome motivator stickers are.

What is most miraculous about the whole deal to me is that Jed went from waking up completely soggy after naps and in the morning to staying dry every night in about two days. He has only had one bed-wetting since we've started, and I think he was so completely traumatized by having to give up his soggy blankets in the middle of the night that he's taught himself to stay dry. Usually when we go to bed, one of us will take him to the bathroom, but he doesn't always need to go. First thing in the morning it's a race to the Froggy Potty, where he's so thrilled to make lots of bubbles with a whole night's worth of urine.

The thing I've learned about Jed is that he has his own time-table for doing things. Whether it's been walking, talking, feeding himself or going to the potty, one day he won't do it at all, and the next day it's like he's been doing it forever. I'm so proud of my big boy!