Monday, May 30, 2011

We are peeing on the potty! (but not pooping...)

It was no small feat for a kid who is quite content to spend the day in a dirty or wet diaper (thank you, sensory processing disorder...), but we are doing it! Quinn is peeing on the potty! No poop yet, and honestly, no real reason to hope that's going to change any time soon.

Me: "Quinn, where do we go poo-poo?"
Quinn: "On. The. Potty!" (You wouldn't believe the enthusiasm!)
Me: "That's right! And where did you just go poo-poo?"
Quinn: "In. The. Underpants!" (Equal enthusiasm.)

No remorse from this kid. I guess this is the downside to taking the potty training thing nice and easy...

Still, we'll take our successes where we can find them. After all, QUINN IS PEEING ON THE POTTY! After an appalling lack of success with regular reminders, and after discovering the impracticalities of letting him run around naked (it worked, but ONLY when he was naked) we jumped on the prize bandwagon. Oh, my. We had a little basket with some cheap stickers and freebie toys, plus a few toy cars. Within hours the kid had the system licked, and was fishing about for the toy cars. That eventually morphed into demands for toy cars upon peeing, and eventually into determined but not very convincing fake tears when one was not produced. Oops.

So we have moved on to the "prize chart," which was greeted with wailing and desperate cries of "Basket? Toy car?" But finally, a week in, he is on board. He gets a sticker for each time he goes, and works toward prizes - a trip to the "car washer" or the little train ride at the zoo or "Old McDonald's" playland - that was his first choice.

So we're progressing, and we're wearing big boy underpants right out in public. Which is darned inconvenient. It means having to pull over when he says he has to go, spending way too much time in dirty public restrooms and trying to remember to take him to the potty at regular intervals. He's shockingly good about it, and sometimes funny to boot. Yesterday he was trying to pull down his underpants at lunch and was stymied by the drawstring. "Mama," he finally said, quite exasperated. "These pants are locked!"

3 comments:

Jennifer and Matt said...

I know how excited you must be!! We're slowly trying with Michael, but he's a smart one - had that sticker chart idea figured out real quick - he'd go and barely squeeze anything out just to get a sticker! He'll go potty before his bath and last night even got out of the bath to go.... but still during the day he'd rather hang out in a dirty diaper (be it wet or poopy)all day. I thought it might have something to do with SPD....that and the fact that he just doesn't want to be bothered!Thanks for giving some hope that we will get there!
~jennifer
p.s. - from your comment on my blog - good idea to have a private one and a family one-- i should have thought about that way back in the beginning!

China Dreams said...

Very cute, especially the part about his pants being locked! I know what a big deal this is-for you, and for him with his SPD. Our grandson with it still hates pooping and was in no hurry to train even for peeing.

Have you ever heard of One Step Ahead and Leaps and Bounds? They have great stuff for traveling with kids-you know, regular traveling-in a car.

Good luck,
Ruby

Jill said...

Yes, Jennifer, there's hope! And thanks, Ruby, I don't know those companies - I'll check them out!