diaper free household

It has been nearly 5 years of diaper changing for Eric and I and we are glad to announce that we are now a diaper free home. YAHOO!

We decided that Saturday (1/8/11) was the day that Lucas was going to start potty training. We had been putting it off for some reason or another (traveling/holiday/etc.) but we finally committed to doing it in the New Year and it was the perfect opportunity because we had a weekend with nothing going on.

So, Saturday morning he woke up and the big boy pants went on.....and it was a LONG DAY! At this point he had never gone to the bathroom in the potty.....so we were SUPER excited when he peed (standing up)in the potty mid-morning Saturday!! At that point we were thinking it was going to be EASY...but we were very wrong. We were continually asking him if he had to go, giving him juice boxes, water, etc. and he kept saying NO. After lunch we put him down for a nap with a diaper on - BIG mistake...he woke up with a completely soggy diaper. After naps he had an accident...and then said "I'll get new/dry pants from upstairs". By this time we had learned two lessons:

1. NO NAPs during potty training - He was looking forward to that time because he knew he would get a diaper.....so no nap meant no diaper!

2. Accidents - He thought that it was no big deal to have an accident because we had a drawer full of clean underpants and clothes. NOPE. We told him he had one pair of underpants and pants for the day! (He spent a lot of time over the weekend naked!)

Saturday night we stayed up until 10:30PM trying to get him to go in the potty before putting him to bed with a diaper. HE WON. We gave in because we couldn't take it any longer!!! Sunday morning he had a soggy soggy diaper. EERRR.

So Sunday, we had a different approach. He didn't get pants until he went pee in the potty. This seemed to work! After he peed, we gave him his pants. About 3 hours later (after lots of juice) we would ask if he had to go - if he didn't want to try we would take his pants off and remind him he could have them back after he went potty. Usually he would go potty pretty quickly after that.

It's now Wednesday afternoon and Lucas has been accident free since Monday!! 3 Days!! Yahoo! I'm not sure that our methods are book worthy but it worked and we are very proud of our little man! and Lucas is very proud of himself!