Kett is 27 months old and with quarantine/stay at home in motion I went full in on potty training. I decided it would be easiest with my husband home to take the plunge and have two sets of eyes on him.
We followed the Oh Crap Potty Training book by Jamie Glowacki. I read most of it and skimmed a good bit of it but used it for referencing when necessary. Usually when I set myself on an agenda I go all in, I read every possible blog I could find and what other people used and what they didn't use especially going by the Oh Crap Potty Training method.
I'll include all the SUPPLIES we used and why in the beginning of this post, you can view all the links here on my Amazon Storefront page.
The biggest and most anxiety ridden purchase is the actual toilet he was going to use. I read so many blogs that said have a portable potty around at all times, some people even went in to buying one for each room so when the kid is ready to go, it is right there. Another instance I read about was having the small potty in the bathroom so they get used to be in the bathroom and going to the potty. My friend Carla sent me an article that said there was a difference in toilet learning and toilet training which is what lead me to researching a bit more and I found this Little2Big toilet seat cover on Amazon.
When researching and learning about toilet learning and training I didn't really want to go through the first of cleaning the small toilets, I already had to change diapers for 2 years. Secondly, I also didn't want to go through the transition learning to go from small potty to regular potty and then also buy a separate seat, another thing to spend money on it just didn't seem worth it to me. So that potty actually solved all of my problems and I'm only spending $32 on it and keeping it for as long as he needs a small round seat under his tiny little bottom.
I bought that seat for the bathroom we use the most and I bought this portable foldable Jool potty seat for our second bathroom. We have been using it for about a month now and he loves calling it his blue seat. I love that I can pick it up and wash it off if I need to. We haven't traveled with it yet but it definitely seems like it would be a great piece to stuff in the diaper bag (clearly turned snack bag now) for those on the go poops. As far as peeing we have been to a friends house and I just hovered him over the toilet and he peed washed his hands and went on his way.
We also use a few different stools and chairs. A red step stool that flips to a chair that my parents had that each one of us used when we were little and actually my sister used for her first few kids until it was passed down to me. I found a second similar one at an estate sale, so both of them are easily at least 40 years old. After a ton of research I found that Lovely Indeed actually created a DIY Step Stool to Chair blog post, which I am so glad I found because it has been so much fun for Kett to use and the only other thing I could find similar was sold on Wayfair for $50, psh. I definitely plan on passing these chairs down to my kids!
They are so convenient for even more than just potty training. I used our family one for a monitor stand in high school actually haha. Kett will switch it to a chair and sit in it when he follows me to the bathroom, because you know... moms can never be alone. I think if you found a wood worker in your area they could also easily make one for you for far less than $50 and I bet way better quality.
As far as our main toilet it is a little taller than most toilets, although my 6'4 husband begs to differ I wanted to find a better step stool that was taller, that would also allow Ketts knees to be taller when he sits to help with his stool flow, we all know the squatty potty commercials and if you don't have something similar for yourself I highly recommend getting one! The iLove Wide 2 Step Stool was the only tall non skid easy clean stool I could find, I hate that it is $30 but to me it was worth those little toddlers being afraid or having a harder time pooping and making it most comfortable to him to be able to do so.
We also bought this Bumbo Step Stool per recommendations from so many others but it wasn't tall enough for Kett although it is great quality and worth the $8 we paid for it. I kept it and use it by the sink or in the kitchen or wherever it needs to go for a bit of height to allow Kett to do the things he likes or wants to help us with.
As far as books the ones Kett liked the most are linked into my Amazon storefront but his ultimate favorite is the The Potty Train. We read it every night over and over and we read it on the toilet and while I was toilet learning with him in the beginning we actually watched one of best friends Carla read it and he loved it. You can watch her read it here. She's going to laugh so much that I linked her video, but she is an early childhood developmental teacher and one of my favorite humans. He loved watching someone else read it and it definitely helped him stay and learn to sit on the toilet for the first day or two in the learning process.
So now that we have supplies down let's talk PROCESS. I know that every child is so different and you know your child best. These were things that worked and didn't work for us that followed the Oh Crap Potty Training method. First and foremost I highly recommend rolling up those rugs and staying out of carpeted rooms. It sucks rolling them up but it did give us a chance to deep clean them so it was kind of a win win for us. Most of the first few days in the book it recommends your child be naked, no clothes at all. This way they get used to the idea of what their body does and how things come out of it. Thankfully the weather was good to us and we spent those first few days outside in the backyard.
In between playing outside I would take him inside every now and then to just sit and hang out on the toilet while we read books or watched Carla's video just do he would get used to the toilet as a not so scary place. I wouldn't say he even went in the toilet by himself at this point.
Back outside every time he peed I would just tell him what a great job he did and that we are going to use the potty when he felt the urge to go. I also diapered him during naps and night time at this point in the process. After the first couple of days of getting used to the toilet and learning that he pees and poops as he started to pee I took him straight to the toilet to finish. He caught on pretty quick with the peeing in the potty. After the fifth day he was running to pee on the potty. Some parents will reward their children and I don't think either way is good or bad but we decided not to reward him for peeing but would applause and I would tell him to go tell dad "I did it" and he was so happy to run into the other room to let Frank know he pee peed in the potty!
As far as pooping, it was a bit more challenging I could tell he didn't want to spend the time to go inside and poop. When he started to feel the urge I could tell in his face and the way he wanted to hide from us, but he was naked and very conflicted about pooping and not having anything to catch it so it gave me enough time to get him to the potty. We would hang out, cue the video and books and just sit and hang out. I would mimic constipation grunts to kind of show him it was okay to be there, saying things like let's get that poop out of here, tell that poop get out of me and he would giggle and finally relax enough to go.
On those first couple occasions when none of that worked I had to bring in the candies, we used our favorite gummy candy from Yum Earth and just hung out and ate snacks. I think it gave him time to just sit and relax and have fun with it. So I don't know if you would call it a reward because he didn't get any afterward but mostly during the process and of course after wiping and washing hands we went on a poo poo parade to tell dad "I did it, I poo pooed in the potty!"
At about the sixth day he didn't need the snacks or gimmicks of video and books he just wanted to go potty. As soon as he knew to run to the bathroom for peeing and pooping is when we started introducing pants back into his daily routine. The biggest thing was to learn to push his pants/shorts down himself. In the book it clarifies to say push your pants down not pull, because they are actually pushing them down. It took a while for him to physically be able to push his own pants down so he just started removing whatever he had on all together. This did not bother me in the least bit. I think the key to potty training is to just go with the flow of your child.
Some things I learned from the book and along the way:
If he made a mistake or had an accident I wouldn't show any kind of emotion and just say things like "okay next time we go to the potty, want to help clean this up with me" and he would help clean it up and we would move on. I didn't make a fuss or show him how annoyed I was I wanted him to know it was all normal but that it had to happen IN the potty. He had probably 6-7 accidents in the house all together, I would call that a win!
In the beginning of his pooping experience a few times he didn't want me around so I told him I would wait outside of the bathroom until he was done so I could wipe his butt. I closely watched of course but the little guy just wanted some privacy which is 100% understandable.
I was so glad that we decided to just potty train on the regular toilets because now we can go anywhere and he can go when he feels like it. Which we have only been two places but I feel like that is also a win that we didn't have any accidents either place.
It took him about a week to catch on to the going in the toilet, another week in learning to push his pants down/ his version of taking them off, another week to learn to wear clothes again and actually just push his pants down instead of completely taking them off. So all together about 3 weeks of learning. After the first week though it was a breeze and a bit more laundry haha.
All photos are taken by BlackBird Creative. It was our first out of the house experience while potty training so I will always look at these mommy and me photos and remember our potty training experience even though they have nothing to with potty training haha. But that's the gift of photos am I right? And I love his little skinned up knees and legs, good gosh.
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