Potty Training: Round 2

So, we're now potty training our second child. It's going..... fairly well. I mentioned a while back that Jude had been asking to use the potty, so even though it was earlier than I had planned on potty training him, I decided we'd give it a go. We got some underwear, and then they basically sat in the drawer. Haha! I have to be honest and admit that I just got lazy. If David was still home when Jude woke up in the mornings, he always put underwear on him. If I got Jude up..... well, I always put a diaper on ;) I'm not really sure why I wasn't more consistent with the underwear, because Jude did fairly well in them. He did have accidents sometimes, but nothing awful. The truth is that I just forgot about the underwear. It was habit to grab a diaper, and first thing in the morning, I'm just kind of running on auto-pilot ;) Probably a month ago, David said that he thought Jude was really ready to potty train, and he wanted us to be more consistent with putting him in underwear. We decided that Jude would wear underwear at home, pull-ups when we when out, and diapers to sleep.

So, that's where we've been the past several weeks. Jude has done pretty well. There are still accidents sometimes (usually about one a day). I have to remind him to go potty more than I ever did with Aubrey. I haven't ever set an alarm and taken my kids to the bathroom every ten minutes or anything like that. I know a lot of people have great success with that method, but I'm lazy (haha), so I just want to try to let them go on their own from the get-go. When Aubrey was potty training, she got a jelly bean as a "reward" every time she went on the potty. Jude hasn't ever gotten a reward for going on the potty..... poor second child! Ha! This wasn't a conscious decision I made; I honestly just didn't even think about it until after he had been having a lot of successes without a reward, so I just left well enough alone. I feel like potty training him has been really anti-climactic so far. I had really geared myself up to have a hard time potty training a boy. I fully expected him to potty train late. I had already even thought about what my "cut off age" would be before I wasn't so laid back about it. Haha! Of course, he still isn't fully potty trained, so I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch! I might still have to remember that cut off age ;)

Jude is so funny about wearing underwear. Sometimes he gets really excited about them and definitely wants to put them on in the mornings. But sometimes he doesn't want to wear them and asks for a diaper. I used to just let him pick, but lately I haven't been letting him wear diapers during the day anymore. I feel like since we've been making good progress and we've decided that we're officially potty training, to put him in a diaper whenever the mood strikes him now would be regressing. Now, we're committed (he initiated the whole thing in the first place!), so we're moving forward. When he asks for a diaper, I explain to him that diapers are for sleeping. I tell him that if he's still tired, I'll be happy to put a diaper on him and let him go back to sleep. But if he wants to come downstairs, we're going to wear underwear! Yay! Isn't underwear exciting?? Ha! He's picked underwear every time I've given him those options :) I don't feel bad doing this because we never once pushed potty training. He totally decided on his own that he was ready. I'm a big believer in waiting until my kids are ready to potty train. That made it SO easy with Aubrey, and I have heard so many people say the key to success is waiting until your child is ready.

It's funny because now when he's wearing a pull-up, he'll tell me when he goes to the bathroom in it: "Mommy, I tee tee in my pull-up." It's cute. Last weekend, we were at home so he was wearing underwear. We got ready to go out to dinner, and I completely forgot to put a pull-up on him. I remembered when we were almost to the restaurant. I was nervous about how that was going to go, but he did great! No accidents :) We took him to the potty twice, and I was happy that our first time venturing out without a diaper was a success. And then when we went to the doctor for the kids' checkups, David decided to let Jude wear underwear. Let it be known that I was not in favor of that decision, but David thought Jude was ready. He was right, and Jude did fine. ;) So maybe I'll have the courage to start letting Jude wear underwear when we leave the house more often. Or maybe I'll just do that when David is with us to clean up the tee tee. Ha!

So, that's where we are with potty training Jude as of now. I hope that I'll be able to look back at this in a few months and see some progress. Let's hope we don't get stuck at this point for months!