Sunday, November 29, 2009

Potty Time

A couple of months ago now we bought Gabe his first DVD. The name of the DVD is 'Elmo's Potty Time'. It is a cute educational show all about Elmo learning to use the potty and growing up. Since LOVES Elmo and so we thought that this would be a great introduction to potty training.

At first we would let him watch it and then we would casually ask him every day if he wanted to pee or poo on the toilet like Elmo and he would say "No, I no like it". So not wanting to push the issue, we would drop it and ask again the next day. After trying this for a few weeks we decided we may have better luck if we buy him a potty. I have to admit the big toilet is a little scary for a little guy. So we made a big deal about going to the store to buy him his own "special" potty (like Elmo) and we acted excited etc. We continued to ask him if he would like to go poo or pee on his potty to which he continued to reply "No, I no like it". He would pull it out and pull his pants down and sit on it (with his diaper still on) and moan and groan etc but still had no real desire to use it.

Then... a couple of weeks ago I decided to move the potty into Brad's office just off the bathroom to see if that would help. It worked! Turns out our boy doesn't like an audience when he has to use the potty. One night the bath was running and Gabe was getting undressed and I asked him if he wanted to go pee on the potty. So he went in to the office closed the door and emerged a few minutes later excitedly telling me he had peed in the potty like Elmo. I jumped up and down and then I put some of that Halloween candy I've been hiding to good use.

Ever since that night he has gone pee on the potty before bath time. I'm glad I was able to use the Halloween candy for a good purpose. After he uses the potty he gets to choose one piece of candy as a reward. Last night during the same routine, we had more success but this time he went No. 2 all by himself. Again we were very excited.

Practicing using the potty- the sound effects were quite funny

Practicing wiping. He would run and get toilet paper from the bathroom and practice cleaning up.

Pulling your pants up is really quite tricky!

1 comment:

Erin Webster said...

Great job Gabe!! Keep it up! (and congrats Nat! haha)