Big Boy Pants = Success!

We are into week two of OPERATION: Intense potty training. A few months back, I wrote about my frustrations with potty training. These frustrations grew from annoyance with pee of the floor to a HUGE DISSATISFACTION WITH CHANGING TWO CHILDREN’S DIAPERS EVERY DAY.  I couldn’t do it any more. He’s three and a half years old. It was time to take away the training wheels.

No more pull ups, no more diapers.  There is a house-wide ban on size 4 diapers in the Hustad household. And it started on Friday, July 10th, 2009. Now, I have heard numerous disaster stories from parents who have chosen to take diapers away from their kids. Horror stories of pee covered couches and poop laden carpet.  I ignored their stories and went forward.  Of course, I must mention, that besides just taking his diapers away, allowing him to soil himself on a regular basis, I also used one more trick.  Bribery.  Good old fashioned bribery. Works every time.

I went to Target and bought 4 Bionacles.  Wyatt calls them “transformers”, so that’s what they are in our house.  The transformers sat in their brand new shiny boxes on the kitchen counter, just out of the three-year-old’s reach.  While dangling the toy above his blond head, I firmly told Wyatt, “Every day you use the toilet the WHOLE day, NO ACCIDENTS IN YOUR PANTS, you will get to open a new transformer before bedtime.”  The first day, we opened a transformer.  So now I know HE CAN DO IT. He is just being a stubborn child. What? How in the world could Chris and I bore a stubborn child? Nonsense, I say.

So the first day of OPERATION: Intense potty training, each time Wyatt used the potty he would pull up his pants and say, “I get new transformer now!”  Then I would remind him that we had to stay dry all day, and by 8 o’clock that evening he could have his new toy.  By God, the kid learned to tell time.  The big hand on our kitchen clock would click over from 7:59 to 8:00 and he was asking for the transformer. (Side note – explaining the difference between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. to a narrow minded three-year-old is no easy task.  Just like when Wyatt pointed to an orange the other day and asked, “What’s that?”  I replied, “An orange,” to which he said, “I know, but what’s that?”  “An orange,” “I know it orange, what it called?” “An orange” “I KNOW! WHAT’S THAT?????”)

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