Third Time's a Charm

For a few months (since our failed attempt in September), Mommy has been saying that we would potty train Noah after Aden started school.  Apparently Noah was listening.  The week Aden started school, Noah began bringing his underwear to her every day, asking to wear them.  Mommy refused, realizing the new school routine was wearing everyone out.  But Noah did not give up, and even broke into tears one day begging to wear big boy pants.  Finally Mommy caved.  "Noah, if you can wait until we get through Aden's first week of school, I will put underwear on you on Saturday."  As it turned out, we ran out of diapers on Saturday, so Mommy kept her promise and put Noah in underwear.  Potty training two other boys has taught us not to get our hopes up too soon, so we braced ourselves for the long haul, pulling up area rugs, putting the potty chair in the living room for easy access, and strengthening our willpower.

When Noah had an accident early on, we left him with no pants at all, simply to lighten the cleanup a bit.  This time around, knowing what we were in for, Mommy didn't stress too much over the accidents, just cleaning them in stride and continuing her day.  She put plastic pants over Noah's underwear when he went to bed, not knowing if he was staying dry at night or not.  Generally, the discomfort of the plastic pants provides some extra motivation for kids to potty train.  But Noah's first reaction when Mommy put them on was, "Wow, Mommy!  These are cool!"  So much for extra motivation.  After his nap he didn't want to take them off, even though he was still dry.  He wore plastic pants to church on Sunday, and again for Sunday nap, then after an after-nap accident we decided to let him go with no pants at all, in an effort to lessen the laundry load.  And from that point on, Noah had no accidents at all for the rest of the day.  With just a little encouragement, he went straight to his potty whenever it was time.  With so much success on Sunday, we went with the same strategy.  Noah went naked, except for a bear-shaped headlamp hanging from his neck.  And he didn't need any prompting to sit on his potty.  He would tell us when he was ready to "peep," as he calls it.  Tuesday the trend continued so we decided he could wear clothes again.  By Wednesday, Noah was done with plastic pants altogether, and told us every time he needed his potty chair (which was now in the bathroom).  A few days later, we were eating dinner at a friend's house, and had brought Noah's potty chair along with us.  He was so proud and excited to come tell Mommy "It worked!" over and over, apparently amazed that the potty chair "works" in any bathroom.  While Noah has discovered the classic get-out-of-bed-to-use-the-potty excuse, and he does have occasional accidents, he has done a great job of potty-training himself!

Some experts may not be surprised at all by our success, but we have been utterly amazed, particularly given the determination of our other two against the potty-training process when it was their turn (even when they seemed ready).  We are proud to say that our home is now officially diaper-free!