Nighttime potty nightmares

The past several nights have been very unsuccessful using the wake-up method.  He would allow me to take him potty no problem, but for some reason, even though I cut off his liquids 2 hrs before bed, he still was peeing the bed every 2-3 hours.  After a few nights of this I decided to go against what we were originally aiming for and put a nighttime diaper on him.  I don't think it will prolong his ability to be potty trained because he is already fairly potty trained.  He must be too young/small to hold it and also when he sleeps deeply he just goes without realizing.  He used to cry out at night if he was wet in his undies but the past several nights he didn't even budge, so he must be in a very deep sleep when it is happening.  Tonight I plan on sleeping WELL.  And I also don't have to pop out of bed the instant I hear him wake up in the mornings, which means back to 8-9 am wakeups for me!  Woohoo!

Fake mama crying

Lately Elliott likes to play this game where he pretends that he is consoling me and will hold my face in his hands gently and make a tiny fake crying noise as he tries to hold back a real smile.  He thinks it is a very funny game and sometimes he will kiss me as well.  This started because when he hit me a few times I pretended to be sad and made him "apologize" to me.  Yesterday Jared asked him, "Where's mama?" to which Elliott replied by suddenly switching to a sorrowful look and making a little whimpering noise.  When I am giving him the stern voice he will sometimes get a mischievous look on his face and cross his arms and pretend to be huffy in an attempt to imitate what his impression of "stern mom" looks like to him.

Diaper-free life

Day 2 of the 3-day potty training went well, still had night accident(s) and 1-2 accidents during the day but overall he was pretty well trained by the end of the day.  He disliked doing #2's in his underwear but would still try to hide it.

Day 3 we went out in the morning for several hours and he did great.  He even went in the travel potty seat I brought to the park that he had never used before.  We are just doing toilets for the most part and he likes them so I wasn't sure he would use a potty seat even, but he sat down no problems in a private pavilion at the park.  He still had trouble with #2's.

After the training was over we have been just continuing with being watchful of him throughout the day but generally he is fine and I expect we'll get in a routine soon and he will get better at telling me when he has to go.  We still have wet nights but we are not planning to go back to diapers at all because it's not a big deal and this way he will learn to hold it longer and to better tell me when he needs to go.  I plan to get him up at midnight and 4 am for awhile just to go quickly and I think this will be a good schedule for us until we can phase those wakeups out.  He doesn't seem to mind when I come get him in the middle of the night and he goes back to sleep but there are always 1-2 times/night that he doesn't call out until after he's already gone so I think I should just wake him and get him in the habit of going at regular intervals.

And that's my too-much-information post on our potty training adventure!

Potty training

We started potty training yesterday and it went well.  He had many accidents in the morning but as the day went on he got better at it and at the very end of the night he asked to go to the potty and went in it on purpose!  Overnight and naps have been more or less dry...all dry naps and only 1 accident at night which was my fault because I didn't catch his cue.  Today he ended the day being fairly well trained.  I would even be ready to venture out into public places with him.  He had 2 small accidents the whole day but 1 was induced by violent sobbing when he realized he was with a sitter when he woke up from his nap.  The 2nd was in the morning when he was remembering the new routine and he stopped himself halfway and finished the rest in the potty.  So both accidents were not very notable, which was good!  He even asked to go #2 in the potty tonight.  He seems to get it and likes it!  I consider the hard part done and tomorrow, the 3rd and final day of the 3-day bootcamp method, I expect to just be reinforcing his good new habits.  We'll see how it goes!  Hope we don't have any major hurdles the next several days, or weeks...

Good job, Elliott!

More June and July

So many photos and so much fun in two months so I'll try to finish packing it all in this last photo post!