Potty Training

(Disclaimer: This post is about potty training. I realize some people might think this is boring or TMI, but I'm writing it anyway for our family members who love to hear about every little thing we do, and for my special needs moms, because we like to celebrate our children's accomplishments, whether huge or small. And this one is HUGE to me.) 

I mentioned earlier that we potty trained Dallin this summer. He was trained after one week and even stayed dry through the night! Even though it went really quickly, it actually took us over a year to train him. I'll start at the beginning...

It all started when Dallin got a potty chair for his 3rd birthday.

We just started by getting him used to sitting on the chair and talking about what it was for. But he was still so little then! And he could hardly talk. To give you an idea of how young he was (and Connor too), this video shows the early stages of potty training. 

We were watching General Conference and the urge hit him.

A few months later, we tried full on potty training. I sat him down on the potty at regular intervals and got him training underwear. He had some successes and several accidents. We spent a lot of time and energy but he wasn't really getting it.

Not even sitting on the potty chair with a laundry hamper worked. (Do other families not do that...? ...oops...)

After two very frustrating weeks, we decided to go back to diapers until we felt he was more ready. Normally, I would say that a three year old would eventually learn, but Dallin was not a typical three year old.

He would still sit on the potty occasionally (we're talking once a month) but we did very little until one year later (this year) when Dallin was four. I "planned" to potty train him this summer but didn't actually have a plan for it. But I woke up one Friday in July and decided it would be a good day to potty train. So we did it! The first few days had several accidents, but by Sunday, he had it down! He stayed dry all through church. He was amazing. He would tell us when he had to go or he would even go into the bathroom all by himself. By day 5 he was dry through the night. I still put diapers on him at night for a week after, but when he kept waking up dry, we ditched diapers completely. 

Dallin isn't big on m&ms, jelly beans, or other oft used potty training reward treats, so we did a sticker chart. Dallin LOVES stickers.

After a week of staying 99% dry and filling in his sticker chart, we took him to Target. He got to pick out his own big boy underwear (he chose a Mickey Mouse pattern) and a toy as a reward. After looking at all the toys and a little suggestion from us, he chose Legos.

These are the regular little legos, not the Duplo blocks. Grown up legos for a grown up boy!

Dallin absolutely loves these Legos. He asks to play with them every single day as soon as he wakes up. Even now, 2 months later, he still plays with them everyday.

 Sometime he separates the bricks by color.

 His potty training journey was a long one, but once we really felt he was ready and went full speed ahead, he amazed us.