Potty Training Hell

So no parent looks forward to potty training their child, but it is a necessity that must be attended to. We have been gradually potty training James, who will be three in November, since he turned two. Bribing with M&M’s to “pee on the potty”. We even started using the training pants and used them as an incentive. “If you pee on the potty, you can wear your big boy pants”, etc. He was getting really good at this and has been going on the toilet three to four times a day (although only #1), so I decided it was time to take it up a notch. There is a method of potty training in which you take your child’s diaper off and allow them to run around the house pantless. The idea is that they will be more aware when they need to go bathroom on the toilet and not in their diaper, which they are no longer wearing. I thought this would be a great idea since James definitely understands the concept of using the toilet and just needed a little reminder to use it. (Here's a pic of him diaperless, aren't baby butts too cute!)

I believe James, as do most children at his age, just go potty in their diaper out of convenience. They are busy playing or doing something far too important to stop and go to the bathroom on the toilet. But if they don’t have a diaper on they’ll go use the restroom, right? Wrong! At least in our instance we were wrong. I know this technique has worked for many people, including some of my friends, but we weren’t so lucky. Today, James pooped and peed on the floor, not once, but twice. That’s right, he did it once and we thought it was just a fluke. We talked to him about it extensively, told him why it was wrong and thought we’d give it another go. “There’s no way he’ll do that again,” we thought. Yeah…not so much. We have thus resorted to putting diapers back on in hopes that he will still use the toilet when he needs to. I didn’t expect potty training to be a breeze, but I guess I did hope that my child would be the exception to the rule and just pick it up like that (snaps fingers). Oh the joys of parenthood. Hopefully I will be able to write a blog update soon that says James is finally potty trained. Until then, we will continue to keep the diaper companies in business :-)