P in the Potty!

Well, we are yet again moving on to another step towards becoming a grown up boy! This all started when we had my pediatrician Dr.Brice in to talk to our MOPS group. He mentioned that a lot of the milestones that we take for granted (walk by 1, potty train by 2 or 3) are very culturally influenced. He mentioned that his last practice was located in a real rural town and that there babies were expected to walk by 8-10 months and potty train by 1.5! Then, two Sundays ago on my "run around town with out a kid" trip I picked up a potty ring at Target for about five dollars. I figured that we had talked about the potty for long enough, let's actually potty!

For the first couple of days whenever I was changing his diaper or clothes I would offer him two mini M&Ms if he would just sit on the potty. "Mnms?" Anything for those! So for a couple of days we just sat on the potty, talked about peepeeing, got our two "mnms" and grunted a little bit. Then I went to Duck Duck Goose on Wednesday and I got a Baby Bjorn Potty Chair for $5.00! When I got home Ethan was really excited to sit on his new potty and low and behold he actually went peepee. For this he recieved five whole mini M&Ms. Since then he has gone on the potty about once a day at least and I have transitioned so that M&Ms are only earned if something is produced. I don't consider this potty training yet, I like to think of this stage as more of a training for our training! Until the actual traingin begins I will continue asking and rewarding (I figure this part can't hurt) and when we are home in the mornings I will especially try to catch a number 2 in the potty (#2 in the potty = great)!

Here is what I have in mind for the actual training: PLAN A (I guess I'll call this one ambitious.) I will have a free week at the beginning of the summer and I think we can use that week to start our ambitious plan! Here are the keys to my plan: I have about a package and a half left of regular diapers to use up and then I plan to transition to g-diapers whenever he is not at preschool. These allow Ethan to feel wetter right when he goes and they have cloth exteriors so they seem like a logical tranistion tool. Then on May 30th Ethan will put on big boy underwear and I suppose we will hang out at the house for that week! My friend Allison just posted about her progress and I think I will steal her stickers idea for the actual training. I see some Cars stickers (or temporary tattoos for #2s) in my son's future! We could even get some bonuses for accident free days or half days!

I'll keep everyone posted on our progress....this could get really interesting!