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Friday, October 21, 2011

The ups & downs of potty training

As I predicted, when Nixon got the hang of using the potty he was golden! He'd run to the potty, pee and come over for his song and reward. Well, the reward thing quickly backfired on us. See, we were doing candy (M&Ms for pee and fun sized candy bars for poop and staying dry) at the beginning, but I soon realized Nixon was getting WAY too much sugar during the day. 
My solution was to switch out the pee and poop candy rewards for trail mix, which on any given normal day Nixon would eat up! Turns out potty training does not fall under the category of "any given day". (We kept the candy reward for Nixon staying dry though because that has become our biggest hurdle. He knows HOW to use the potty but he's not always all about going on the potty when he's wearing undies)
The first couple offers of trail mix went okay. But when trail mix was still all Nixon was getting as a reward the next day, he was less than enthused. Today is day 3 of trail mix and he's decided he's not going to use the potty at all. I've got one more trick up my sleeve, Nixon's done so good at potty training this month I'm not ready to let him give up over rewards....trail mix with yogurt covered raisins! Nixon might think the yogurt pieces are candy enough to appease him to keep potty training. 


Fingers crossed.


On the upside: Nixon's been successful at staying dry when we've gone out to run errands or eat out for lengths up to 2 hours! That's huge seeing how just last month he was in diapers all the time. I've made up songs for his staying dry, pooping on the potty and peeing on the potty....and I don't feel the least bit silly singing them to him and clapping whenever he proclaims "Ta-Da" over his potty!! It's what being his mom is all about, building up his confidence by any means necessary, within reason of course.   

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