Potty Training Naked Method Week 1 Update

We have been working on introducing potty training for a couple of months now. We would have Eren sit on the potty at diaper changes, especially first thing in the morning (if he was in a good mood first thing), randomly throughout the day, and before bath time, for example.  But he pretty much never peed on the potty in all that time! I could count on one hand how many times he successfully peed on the potty in those couple of months. He told me when he pooped in his diaper maybe twice.

So after not making much progress at all, I decided it was time to take potty training seriously and hit it hard. I wanted to see if perhaps Eren just wasn't ready or if we weren't being consistent enough with him. 

Eren turned two on March 17. We started doing nakey butt potty learning on June 25.

So we decided to start implementing a lot of naked butt time this past week and boy, has it made a difference! 

Eren gets excited about the potty and actually cares about the whole concept now. Before, I didn't think he had a clue what was going on. 

So what have we been doing? 

Let Eren run around the house in only a t-shirt. 

Keep the potty in the middle of the living room in the same spot all the time. Leave the lid up a lot too, so it's always ready. 

Make Eren wear training pants or underwear while we play outside, go somewhere, or have guests over. 

Put a nighttime diaper on him for bedtime. (He's not napping anymore, but if he were, I'd probably put a diaper on him for naps too)
Randomly throughout the day, I'll just say, "hey, babe, remember when you need to go potty, just go sit down on the potty, okay?" I don't force him to sit on it, I don't put on a timer and make him try at any intervals. I have just been waiting for him to figure it out. The first day, I gave him snacks for sitting and trying, but after that, he's only been getting snacks when he actually goes.
I've been giving him candy when he goes on the potty. His older brother Calvin is also getting candy when Eren goes potty because I don't want to fight about who gets more candy haha. So this has actually helped Calvin get involved. He gets so ecstatic when Eren goes potty, tells him he's doing a great job, and he helps us carry the potty to the toilet to flush away. I guess that's another thing, we make it a big event to carry the pee container to the toilet, he gets to open the toilet seat and flush it away and shut the toilet lid.

Day-by-day:

I started on a Thursday at home by myself with the boys and vlogged the whole first day. (That video will be up soon.) We didn't have much success. Eren peed on the floor a couple times before he even admitted that he was peeing, he did wear training pants a few times throughout the day and peed in them every time. He didn't pee in the potty at all. 

Friday the boys spent the afternoon at one grandma's and overnight at another, so I don't think we even bothered with any potty learning time. 

Saturday we forgot about nakey butt time until like halfway through the day and he made a little progress in the afternoon. 

Sunday he actually made a lot of progress. He was really good about sitting every once in awhile. Randomly he would just say "potty!" And run to the potty, sit for 10 sec, then leave without peeing. But he'd come back a couple minutes later and try again and he'd pee! So he was finally starting to recognize the feeling his body made when it was time to go! 

Monday he would pee anytime I put him in underwear (he did a Walmart pickup in the am and played outside once in the am and once in the pm, and he peed in his underwear every time! ha). I think he only peed once when he wasn't wearing underwear, and he did get it in the potty. For his poo, he started pooping on the floor, then realized he needed to get to the potty and finished pooping on the potty. He wasn't telling me when he'd pee in his underwear. Even if I asked him, he wouldn't admit it. So it felt like a bit of a set-back. 

Tuesday he pooped fully on the potty! He didn't start pooping somewhere else, he realized he needed to poop, sat on the potty the whole time until he was finished, then told me he went potty! It was a pretty big deal and I was so excited! He peed in underwear once while we were playing outside. And he peed on the floor once, but headed to the potty to finish once he noticed he was peeing. So he had a really good day. I started seeing that each day had so much progress!

Wednesday he had two accidents, both pees sitting on the couch. He pooped in the potty all on his own again. And overall he had a really awesome day. He did pee in training pants when we played outside, which seems to be his thing. We also started implementing a sticker chart reward instead of snacks. I decided he'll continue to still get snacks for poops though. 

So week one went really well! Of course there's a lot still to learn. Here are some goals we'll be thinking about in our next week of potty training:
Help Eren remember to tell me he needs to pee while he's wearing underwear too.
Pulling underwear up and down.

We'll probably keep doing the nakey butt thing next week, but we'll work on talking about pottying while we're playing outside and he has underwear on too.

Thanks for reading!
Love,
Alaina