Potty Training 101

Today’s Ledger-Enquirer includes an article about my potty training adventures with Owen. At the writing of the piece, Owen had miraculously potty-trained himself and gone at least a week without accidents. We’ve regressed a bit since then. On one day a couple weeks back, when Owen was constipated and short on sleep, he had six accidents and about sixteen temper tantrums. Luckily that was a blip on the screen but we still have the occasional accident and we’ve begun wearing the thicker training underwear again, since Owen’s initial determination to wear Thomas the Train and Elmo wore off a bit. So Owen often produces a little dime-sized spot of pee on his underwear before he decides to declare that he needs to use the potty. Potty training is inevitably a long journey, even when it goes relatively smoothly. All I know is I’ve given away most of our diapers and put some spares in the closet, and unless we have some visiting guests in need of them, I don’t intend to pull them back out. Because once you get to underwear in my house, there’s no going back.

I’m not providing links to any Web sites this time around, because I decided to stick with the built-in incentives of potty training and follow Owen’s lead – and forget all the tricks and gimmicks this time around. It seemed to work better for us, but of course, it helps to have a big brother around. (We did read Joanna Cole's "My Big Boy Potty" on occasion, though; it's a nice little book.)

If you’ve got potty training tips or stories or online resources to share, please do.