Potty Training

Lawson wanted to go potty on the big toilet when he was about 18 months old. Now, mind you, that only happened like once or twice and then he shut off the potty training efforts. We decided not to push unless he seemed like he was taking to it willingly. I'm not sure what our plan was if he never seemed to take to it, but that was our philosophy.

In February of 2013, a fellow toddler boy mom posted on Facebook that she was doing potty training boot camp. I commented on her post that I hoped she would take notes and share when our time came. That weekend, Lawson decided to go pee-pee and poop on the potty! It was crazy. He was staying the night at Nana's actually, but when he came home, we started letting him wear big boy underwear at home and pull-ups to bed and any time we left the house (preschool, outings, etc.) This went on for a few weeks, but we were struggling to get him to consistently go #2 in the potty. He did well with the other for the most part (even when we were out or he was at preschool), but he would sometimes ask to put a pull-up on when he needed to go #2.

I ran in to that same toddler mom who did potty training boot camp at this point, and asked her how it was going. She told me her son (who is almost six months older than Lawson) had it down after their four-day, boot camp weekend. When I told her what we were doing, she told me that in her opinion, pull-ups were still just diapers and that switching might be confusing. I left the conversation feeling like I had just gotten a pep talk. That Friday, we put on big-boy underwear and never looked back!! For a few weeks, I spent a good chunk of change on "poopie prizes" to motivate Lawson to go in the potty instead of his underwear. By April, we were in the clear!! I cannot begin to explain how awesome this was!! We are so proud of our big boy! And, we are so glad he was ready when he was. :-)

I'm certain he will hate that I have these photos when he gets older, but I couldn't resist.