Potty Training Adventure

Many of Aidan's friends are potty training or are potty trained. We've been talking with Aidan about going potty and being a big boy. He's been hesitant to make the leap. Julien has been a little worried that Aidan wouldn't be out of diapers before the baby comes. That's not as big a concern to me. I know he'll just regress anyway so we'll still be training him in a way. But, now some of the kids in playgroup are potty training too and they are Aidan's age or younger. So, I figured we'd give it a try. We went to Target and Aidan picked out some Thomas the Train underwear. This week we gave them a try. We started out wearing them after dinner on Tuesday night and just running around in our underwear. We would give Aidan a special treat for sitting on the potty without pants for 5 minutes and then increased the time gradually. Aidan caught on to the treat part of it right away. They whole going potty part has been harder. So, we tried Tuesday and Wednesday night (with no success) and today we have worn undies all day and stayed inside. First he'd tell me he needed changed right away when he'd have an accident. By lunch we had changed undies twice. Then after lunch he'd tell me he needed a fresh diaper and wouldn't actually be wet. So I'd have him sit and try. This happened a couple times. Finally right before naptime, he said it again. By this point, we've moved the potty into the livingroom on a mat and put a box of toys next to the potty. I had him sit down and I pushed aside his toys and had him sit. Finally he said, "Mommy I need help." I looked and he hadn't "tucked" all the way down and he peed down the front of the potty. (Thank goodness for the mat!) I told him it was ok and that he had peed in the potty. He got this look like "Oh that's what you want me to do." Then he got excited. I told him he did a good job and that he would get a special treat for this. He got excited about his success and even called Daddy and left him a message to tell him what he did. We talked about how he had kept Thomas dry and that after nap he would put Thomas would put back on. I really hope this was the breakthrough that we needed. I thought if he had a success then maybe he would be more motivated to keep trying. We'll have to see what rest of today brings and tomorrow. I'll take any success we can get! :)