Potty Trained!

A week before we headed to Vancouver on our way to the lake, I caught Boone starting to have a poop while in his car seat. I asked him if he wanted to go on the side of the road instead and he surprisingly agreed. We knew we only had moments to act, so Hugh slammed on the brakes and pulled over. He grabbed Boone ripped his diaper off and cradled him in his arms before sweet talking Boone to go poop. It looked so awkward. Boone was almost lying down in his arms with his butt just hovering over the ground. Boone didn’t go for it, so Hugh set him down and I showed Boone how to squat. He immediately started pushing and had his first poop out of his diaper (well, the first poop purposely out of his diaper, anyway!). This started a trend of Boone pooping on the side of the road when we were in the van. Our trip to Vancouver had a number of stops for Boone to poop. We quickly found out that is not nearly as easy to find somewhere to pull over in the mountains as it is in Saskatchewan! Hugh and I were thrilled at Boone's progress. We really felt it was the start of the end of him in diapers . . . and we were completely right.

After we got home from Vancouver, we headed to the lake. Our first trial run at no diapers was a Saturday. It was a great day on the beach – the perfect place to practice. Boone has never wanted to go pee on the potty. I have been asking him almost daily at home and he always responds, “no tank-t-you”. It was no different at the beach, so instead we asked him if he wanted to go on a tree. This was a motivator for Calder when he was Boone’s age. The tree wasn’t Boone’s thing, but it didn’t take long to figure out peeing off the dock was! He only had a couple of accidents that first day.

Boone also continued on his trend of pooping in open air that first day. At one point, my mom looked down to the beach and saw our big boy had pulled down his trunks and was squatting on the beach taking a dump. LOL. This got even funnier when he was trying to bend over to watch his poop come out and he fell back into the pile he had just laid. Oy.

Those first couple days were pretty successful and by that Wednesday Boone had his first accident free day!  It is still easiest to get him to pee off the dock or our deck, but he is gold at pooping in the potty (although, I do suspect that we haven’t seen the last random, out in the wild, poop). We used small candies for motivators, but he often forgets to even ask for them.

Boone isn't particularly a fan of underwear, therefore he was uncooperative for a picture when I made him put them on. He prefers commando, but we are slowly managing to get him to put underwear on! 

Boone loves being at the beach and that Thursday (day 6 of training) after his accident free day, he started just pulling down his own pants to pee whenever and wherever he deemed fit. We obviously have a bit of work to do on social etiquette, but we are loving that he knows when he has to go and chooses not to go in his pants! We are so proud of our big boy!

Update: It has been two weeks since our first Saturday of potty training and Boone has got it. He hasn’t had an accident in a week and has also had wet free naps and nights for almost that long (this feels fluky, but we aren’t complaining!).