Those of you that know me – know that I’ve been trying to Potty Train Dawson for YEARS. And that is not an understatement. Back in June 2011 (notice the year is not 2012) I was DETERMINED not to have two in diapers and so for 3 months straight – in the months before Adalynn was born – I worked with Dawson to try to get him trained. He was actually doing really well at going pee on his own but REALLY struggled with doing number two. As in we had never been able to get him to go even once. As in he would hold it and save it up until night time just so he could go in his diaper. It didn’t seem to matter what we bribed him with (and believe me we tried everything) he would NOT go. He was one stubborn little man.
Then after Adalynn was born, just as people told me, he reverted back and refused to even go pee for awhile. It was frustrating and downright nasty at times having to change poopy diapers of a WAY over three year old boy. But we persevered, plugged our noses, and tried to be patient (which we were unsuccessful at many a times). We kept trying to train but mostly our efforts were in vain or we ended up with a 100% accident day – which as all mothers of potty training children know is completely ZERO fun.
They say all it takes is finding the right motivation and we think after 1.5 years of trying to do just that we think we’ve finally got it right. Because our little 3.5 (turning 4 in February) boy has had no accidents in over a week. And only 1 accident in two weeks. We think we are there. We think the nightmare might be over. And it is magic to our ears (and noses). đ
So what was the motivation you ask?……wait for it….. NO NAPS. That was it. THAT was the motivator. Although Dawson really NEEDS daily naps (they are usually still 2-3 hours long), that was the magic motivation for him to start going in the potty. If he hadn’t gone poo by nap time (around 1:30 in the afternoon) than he had to take a nap. However, I would place his little potty in the room with him on a rug and if he did decide to go potty than he could come out from his nap early and watch a movie or his favorite show “The annoying Orange” on my laptop (after I wiped him and cleaned him up of course). And finally he started to do it. FINALLY our little boy learned to go poop in the potty and we couldn’t be more excited about it.
However, loosing nap time has had some repercussions as you can see below. It has totally cracked us up though and luckily Dawson has kept his mostly sunny bright happy personality despite the loss of sleep. We are just excited he’s finally decided to join the big boy club! Way to go little buddy!
