3 Day Potty Method: Day 1

After Ethan's initial interest in the potty at 17 months, his enthusiasm began to wane. He went from only having 2 wet diapers a day (the rest being in the potty) to only using the potty twice a day (if that). Recently, however, he's been more interested again, and we've gone over a week at a time without having to change a poopy diaper, which is always nice. So about a month ago, I decided to investigate the 3-day potty training method several of my friends had raved about. You have to wait until your child is at least 22 months and set aside a 3 day period to do absolutely nothing but stay at home watching your child with rapt attention. And that 3 day period I set aside a month ago began today.

The first step of the method is throwing out the diapers. Since we use cloth, that meant a final wash and stripping in preparation for storage for an eventual kid #2. From now on, Ethan will be exclusively in underwear. The point of this is to remove any crutch the parent might have in starting potty training and also to make accidents readily apparent. As soon as the child has an accident, they are whisked away to try to finish on the potty. Rinse and repeat. And repeat. And repeat. The whole process is meant to be very positive (tons of praise, no negativity, rewards, etc.)

So how did day 1 go? Well, we survived. Ethan was NOT thrilled about his underwear at first. He loved that there are trains on it, but when I tried to put it on him, he started crying. He continued to be upset about it all through breakfast and would only eat sitting in my lap. We kept praising him and telling him what a big boy he was, and by the time Daddy left for work, Ethan was fine with his new duds. When he woke up this morning, he had peed on the potty, and he managed to stay dry until his first accident over an hour after waking. And then it began. You give them TONS of fluids to provide plenty of opportunities for learning. In total, Ethan had 20 accidents today. Some were bigger than others, and a couple of times he finished on the potty. Several other times, he realized he had to go, ran to the potty, and went all by himself (he'd usually preface such an event by telling me "Bye bye!" and running off)! In fact, he stayed in the same pair of underwear from 5 to almost 8! And he woke up from his nap dry, which he hasn't been doing lately after having done it for months earlier.

I'll admit we aren't sticking 100% to the plan. You're supposed to use underwear for overnight as well, but I'm just not sure I'm up to changing sheets in the middle of the night just yet. Instead, we're using the training pants we got 4 months ago. His "sleep underwear" (as we're calling it) looks and goes on just like his normal underwear but has a cloth insert that can be changed out 5 times. The main reason the method wants underwear 24/7 is to avoid a regression if a child realizes there are still diapers in the house, so hopefully this won't cause any problems since it's so similar. And since Ethan didn't use the potty before bed (or 30 minutes after I put him to bed when I took him to try again), I'm thinking the chances of him waking up dry tomorrow are pretty slim.

The method says the majority of kids won't get it until the end of day 3, and all of my friends who have used this method experienced the same thing. I'm hopeful that MAYBE Ethan will get it at some point tomorrow because I'm already starting to go stir crazy.

Potty training is certainly not for the faint of heart, but I'm glad we're doing it! And if you made it through all that, here's your reward: Ethan wearing his very last diaper last night!