Potty Training, part 2

We are now a little over a month into potty training.  Here's a bit of a summary of how things have gone since I last discussed this.

Week 2 back at school, and he had a couple of accidents at school on Monday but otherwise he did really well, with only the occasional accident.  The director was also really upbeat and positive.  She expressed her shock and surprise at how well he was doing, especially along the poop front.  She admitted that this had been her major concern as before potty training Bennett would poop multiple times a day at school (usually 3-4) and they would often be pretty loose.  However, since potty training, Bennett seems to now be a once a day pooper and they have definitely firmed up!

We've braved trips to the mall and also to Sturbridge and survived both without any accidents.  Of course in both places he said "paw-paw" (this is how he says "potty") when we were nowhere near one.  At the mall Chris ran Bennett to the closest one we knew of (luckily we do seem to know where most bathrooms are located, including some of the ones in the department stores) but as luck would have it, the men's room was closed for cleaning.  He called me (I had stayed in the store we were in to make a purchase) and I quickly went to grab Bennett and take him into the ladies room.  Luckily no accident!  Then at Sturbridge his request for a potty was a false alarm.

We've also had dry nap diapers pretty much since the beginning, maybe only one or two that have been wet.  We had a weekend where we had him nap without a diaper and he was dry so we asked at school if they had a policy about naps.  Surprisingly they don't, so they are going to try him without a diaper for naps.  Now we just need to tackle overnight!  However, the next weekend we had accidents both days during naps, but then this past weekend he was dry again.

Week 3 started off with a few accidents at school plus a couple more at home.  We think the school accidents was just the reset from being away for the weekend.  The ones at home, he had been playing outside and didn't manage to run inside in time. Tuesday was accident free, but then a couple more on Wednesday.  The weekend was good though, except for naps where he woke up wet both days (we hadn't used a diaper) and a poop accident on Saturday when we were at the bookstore.  He must have been gassy or thought he had to poop because we had already taken him to the bathroom 3 times, but as soon as they left that third time, Daddy was holding Bennett and felt the poop.  Yuck!  But on the positive side of things, we also had a weekend poop in the potty while playing outside.  He really does seem to know when he has to go and if the potty is easily available, can get there pretty well.

Week 4 he was accident free on Monday and the rest of the week was a mix of accidents and not.  Overall though we are still pretty pleased with his progress.  Week 5 had a few more accidents.  Most of the accidents seem to happen at school.  Part of this is that he is at school more than at home so it makes sense to have more accidents there, but he is also more distracted by hs friends and whatever he's playing with.

I know that accidents are all part of the learning process, but I hope the frequency of accidents starts to diminish.

We're also decided it's time to start night training.  His diapers have always been pretty heavy when he wakes up, so it means that we need to wake up a few times overnight to take him potty.  However, there have been a few nights where we put him to bed,  he's been quiet for a while and then all of a sudden starts fussing.  This isn't out of the ordinary.  Some nights go better than others.  We go into his room to tell him to go to sleep, and he immediately says "potty" and jumps out of bed.  Some nights he pees on the potty, other times we wonder if it's a stall tactic.

Part of the decision was based on using up all of our diapers.  (Prior to training we used cloth, but we've now been using "sposies" because it's just easier since we don't want a bunch of wet diapers stinking up the house until we have enough to wash them.)  We didn't want to go out and buy another pack of diapers, so it's time for night training!  We are now 3 nights in.  I'm not sure if there is really any noticeable pattern yet.  I think we'll have to give it a few more days and then maybe adjust the wake-up times a bit to try to avoid accidents.