I have no advice really. All I know is that I was terrified of potty training and thought it would be such an inconvenience to be nowhere near a toilet. But you guys it was the easiest thing ever! We definitely had our fair share of accidents, but I'm okay with accidents - poop and pee on the floor or either of those items in his underpants. None of it phases me, maybe that's because I had been dealing with it for so long with the cloth diapers?
For the most part as long as I sat him on the toilet before we went anywhere, he was normally good to go. And I always left the house with a spare pair of underpants and pants/shorts.
We borrowed a potty from a friend when Jack was about 2.5 (maybe 2 3/4? I can't really remember) and he just sat on it occasionally. Some times he'd pee and some times he wouldn't. He was completely unpredictable. But I was okay with that as I was just introducing him to the idea and our pediatrician had said don't even bother with anything having to do with potty training until he's 2.5.And I didn't want to bother with anything having to do with potty training until he was at least 3 as we were planning on traveling internationally with him just before his third birthday, and I really didn't want to have to deal with wet pants and extra clothes.
In hindsight, if I would have known how nice it would be to not have him in diapers, I would have done it before we'd left! Changing the poopy pull ups of a 3 year old = not fun.
We started putting him in pull ups probably around 2 3/4 as I just wanted to get him use to the idea of pulling them up and down like you would a pair of underpants! But once we went overseas, we tossed all our potty training practices to the wayside and figured we'd resume with full force once we got back.
And resume we did. I took him to Target one of the first days after we got back and bought him some underpants - and we started only doing pull ups at night.
Let the adventures begin.
He peed really easily on the potty and we'd just put him on it in the AM when he first woke up and then again before we'd leave the house to go somewhere in the AM, and again before his nap, and again after his nap, and again later on in the day and again before bedtime, and then we repeated it all again the next day! And he'd poop in that little potty, but he wasn't a huge fan of that, so we quickly transitioned to the regular toilet. We didn't have a special potty seat for the toilet and he's fallen in a few times, but it's made for some good laughs.
And then once I ran out of pull ups, we just started putting him in his underpants at night, and yes of course he's had accidents. Not many though, but one of them did happen in our bed, and that was NOT fun. But we just figured he'd learn from his accidents and as much as I hate changing pjs and sheets in the middle of the night, I just figured it was all part of the process.
We didn't really follow a system nor did we really do incentives - some days we'd offer him stickers, some days we'd offer him extra shows on the ipad, some days we'd offer him a treat (he loves chocolate chips!!), some days we'd offer him nothing. The incentives were constantly changing, but the one thing that didn't change was our encouragement and excitement for Jack and his potty training aspirations!
And I'm sure we've all heard it, you know that saying "When they're ready, they're ready." It's so true though, Jack was ready to be out of diapers, and I was ready for him to be. Two in diapers is rough, and two in cloth diapers felt really rough! So potty training felt really easy!
Don't get me wrong, he still has accidents here and there. In fact today, as he was in his swim trunks. He just said I need to go potty, I need to go potty....and he'd peed his pants a little before we made it to the toilet.
Whatever. It happens. It's all part of the adventure. Right?
I'll just add those clothes to the already overflowing dirty laundry.
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