Potty-Training {For The Record}

This post is mainly for my memory and for a record of how the whole potty-training experience has gone with Jonah. Something that I can look back on when he is older or when our next young'in gets ready for this milestone.

I am going to call it.....Jonah is officially potty-trained!!

I am not gonna lie. I thought this day would come sometime after he turned 3 and that it would take months before he mastered it. So we were all pleasantly surprised that it really only took a good 2 weeks and most of that was not that bad. There are 2 main things that helped us overall with potty-training.

1. We waited to even start pushing it until we KNEW he was ready.

For Jonah, that moment came when he and I were in the bathroom and I was using it and he was standing there (wearing his diaper) and informing me that he was pee peeing in his diaper. My thought process was well if you know you are going pee pee then you know what that means, as in, the pee pee comes out and goes into my diaper. So I thought he was ready to know that pee pee belongs in the toilet. I will say one exception to this is that we had already introduced the potty chair to him and he had been peeing on it BUT it was only right before his bath and only then. So we knew he physically could go on the potty chair but just had not pushed the issue.

2. Lots and lots of positive reinforcement when he went on the potty or even tried.

This came in the form of M&Ms in the beginning. Every time he would pee pee on the potty he got 2 M&Ms. At my Mom's he also had a sticker chart too with stickers of his favorite things. Also we would just praise him and tell him what a big boy he was each time. Now his favorite thing is that when he goes #2 he gets a bag of fruit snacks. He never forgets about that! LOL!


So back to calling him officially potty-trained. I say "officially" because of several reasons.

1. He goes both #1 and #2 on the potty.
2. He knows that all the pee needs to be in the potty
3. He will go on any potty, anywhere we are at.
4. He stays dry through his naps and all night.
5. He knows full well what an accident is.
6. He tells us if he needs to go and has not had an accident in over 2 weeks.

We are so proud of the big boy that Jonah is getting to be! He just amazes me but I am TOTALLY biased! LOL! I feel like I shouldn't have been too surprised at how easily it went since he has followed this pace all of his tiny life. He does things on his own time and when he is ready he aces them. From everything from giving up the bottle, holding his own cup, feeding himself, walking, talking, putting himself to sleep....when I think back it was all a breeze to him as long as we stayed out of his way.

So that is my biggest piece of advice to anyone who even cares or is reading that is in this stage of toddler-hood....you have to wait until they are ready! Not when you think they should be ready but when you know without a doubt that they are ready. It will make your life so much easier. The best advice our pediatrician gave us was to not even THINK about potty-training until he was 2 (his advice for boys). That is exactly what we did and I am glad we listened to him.