Three Day Potty Training: Day 3 And Beyond!

Even though we abandoned the whole Three Day method, I figured I'd do a bit of a wrap up.

We started Monday and strictly followed Three Day deal for the first two days. Then we realized that is SO not the method for our Little Bear and it was driving him to hate us and his potty. Wednesday, we started to relax a bit.

It wasn't until yesterday afternoon that it hit me that part of our issue was the underwear. Although Little Bear was happy to be rid of diapers, he was still in the diaper mindset and was using underwear the same way (a little pee here, a little pee there so we were having constant accidents) and wasn't getting that you hold it until you have enough to have to go to the potty.

Which brings us to today and a little boy that is now stuck just wearing a big t-shirt and socks. The condition now is that he needs to be able to tell us when he has to pee, then we will start letting him wear undies again. Ditching any clothes below the belt seems to be teaching him that he can't go a little all the time. He doesn't like peeing without anything on his bottom so he actually holds it until the next time he's on the pot.

In addition to ditching the unders, we have also (finally) gotten Little Bear on board with "trying" regularly. In order to get him to stop fighting that idea (and literally fighting me when I put him on the potty), I started treating it like I do everything else with him, lots of warning. "You can play for two more minutes and then we're going to try to go pee... One minute to go." "Fly one more lap around the house and then we'll go try in the bathroom." "Pick a stuffed animal you would like to bring to the potty with you." "As soon as you are done eating, we'll go sit on the froggy potty!" Also, I've stopped asking if he wants to go try because the answer will be "no". Instead it's just what we're doing. End of story.

Seriously, night and day. The kid just needs warning and to know what is coming next. He wants to be involved in the day's plan and I think it makes him feel like he's a little more in control and not being forced to do things.

Hopefully this gets us one step closer to him telling us when he has to pee, and one step closer to wearing pants.