...Or Get Off The Pot

When I picked Alex up from school Monday and the 2's teacher told me that he was officially moving into that room, she told me, "In a few weeks, we'll probably ask you for some pull-ups to make potty training easier." She showed me the little bathroom they had -- with a working flush toilet built at toddler potty height -- and told me about their training approach (which is to encourage any and all interest in the potty and bathroom, and to praise lavishly any attempts to actually use it).

She also told us that she was working with the boys that week on remembering to hold their "peepees" down when they were sitting on the potty, so if he was talking about it, then that was probably why.

I passed all this on to Matt, and was glad that we had picked up a case of pull-ups the last time we were at Sam's Club. And indeed, a couple of times Alex announced that he wanted to go potty, and we dutifully helped him with his pants and his diaper, set him on the training potty, and reminded him to hold his peepee down. He didn't actually go, but that's fine. Slow acclimatization is the name of the game, here.

Yesterday, I came home to find Alex's daily sheet on my computer with triumphant notes written all over it: Alex had gone poo in the potty! Twice!

That's actually kind of a big deal. For whatever reason, it's typical for kids to learn to pee in the potty first, but be reluctant to poo for a bit longer.

And then last night, while I was at book club, Alex told Matt he wanted to go potty, so Matt got him on the pot, and he managed a little pee! That's three successful potty uses in one day!

We might need to break out the pull-ups a little sooner than we thought. And the M&Ms. (When Penny was training, we gave her 1 M&M for each successful potty foray.)

We can't call him trained by any stretch, but it's definitely an encouraging start! Penny didn't finish training until she was 3 1/2, so I had resigned myself to another pretty long haul with Alex -- boys are usually slower than girls, all else being equal. But by gum and golly, I think I can see the light at the end of the diaper tunnel!