Potty Training: Day 4

I may be starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm thinking the tunnel will take longer than a week to travel, but at least there's light!

Today we had at least four good successes in the potty, and very few cleanups. Caleb spent quite a bit of time on his frog potty, though only one of his successes was there. The other successes were in the big potty. I'm not sure if it's more comfortable, more secluded, more grown-up, or just a random coincidence.

Other positives:

• Caleb showed his teddy bear how to go on the potty, indicating that he has a good understanding of what he should do, even when he doesn't do it. It was also the most times he's said, "Potty!" to tell his bear about it. Otherwise he doesn't ever claim the need to go on the potty.
  
• When Caleb wasn't falling asleep for his second nap, I checked on him and he was pacing his crib with his hands clamped firmly over his front-side. I quickly took him to the potty and he did his business! So he has some control over his bladder, etc, and felt the need to hold it during naptime.
  
• Caleb asked to sit on his frog once, though the effort didn't produce anything. But at least he had the desire.
• Caleb has long periods of time staying dry, as the last three days have shown a pattern.

The biggest negative right now is that Caleb does not let us know verbally that he needs to go to the bathroom. He also does not initiate getting on the potty on his own. We have to watch for the signs and sometimes find creative ways to get him to sit on the potty, but not so creative that he forgets why he's there. So some might argue that at the moment we, the parents, are the ones being trained. But today felt like we had some good improvement. The week's not over, yet!

More to come!

Random notes:

• The reason my goal has been for a week is because I read an article about how to potty train a toddler in a week, and the training techniques were geared toward ages 18-24 months. So I've been following the article's advice pretty closely and hoping for success in a week. I know, though, that it's a very hopeful goal, and it's going to be quite okay if my kid is not potty-trained at 18 months. If this doesn't work, we'll probably go back to our original goal of 2 1/2 years.
• I'm really a fan of the hardwood floors for this venture. For older kids who train in three days, it may not be an issue, but we have cleaned a lot of pee off of this floor. A lot.