Sunday, July 8, 2007

Diapers Be Gone!


As if by magic: no more diapers.

We started with Lyle on Tuesday, and by now he has proven to be capable of leaving the house in underwear. He uses the potty in public restrooms from coffee shops to church, and stays dry in between. It has taken some extra effort to help him learn to get Numero Dos in there, but when I took him to the Starbucks across the street yesterday (after a particularly gruesome clean-up) and we picked out the world's biggest chocolate chunk cookie as a reward (okay, he only got a piece of it!), the child was desperate to get it all in there, if you know what I mean.

I am not a big fan of forcing potty training. I would never have done this if Lyle's new nursery school didn't require it. With Baxter, we did it on his timetable. So what if he was 3 and a half? That's okay - there were really no accidents to speak of, and he was night trained at the same time. Pretty damn easy.

But I'm here to tell you, if I have to push it, I am a big fan of going cold turkey. (As for the M & M rewards...this Floortimer is not above using behavioral food rewards for this particular job!) None of this wearing Pull-Ups during the day as a transition, because I'm sorry: those just feel like diapers to a toddler. So what if we had a couple of tough days? No biggie in the long run. We do the Pull-Ups at nap and night, mostly so we can make a big deal about No More Diapers, and indeed we have given the diapers away to younger children of Lyle's choosing.

I'm sure it'll be a bit rocky for a while, but we've had 0-1 accident(s) per day for the past few days so we're doing great over here.

Guess I can go back to work tomorrow!

2 comments:

Cara said...

Yay, Lyle! Yay, Jordan and Matt! You did it! :-)

Unknown said...

Yippee! Every once in a while I'll ask Molly if she wants to go on the potty. She always says no, but since our visit, she now says, "no but if I do, I get M.M.s like Lyle!"