Well, today started better then yesterday. When Music Man woke up, he knew he needed to go into the bathroom and then he willingly allowed me to put on the underwear. So, we're thinking things are looking up. But before we went downstairs, we already had our first accident of the day. So, what will today REALLY be like?
Well, after I noticed the accident, I brought him into the bathroom and had him sit on the potty for a while. During this stint, I heard some drops make their way into the toilet. HOO-RAY!!!!!! That was immediately followed by HUGE praise from me (and Big Brother who overheard my praise) and Dad called from downstairs (also having heard my praise) and we were ready to get Day 2 going.
After breakfast, we realized Music Man was still the same stubborn boy as he was yesterday. By the time I arrived downstairs about 1.25 hours later, he was on his 3rd pair of underwear/jeans for the day. Dad and Big Brother were heading out to see Start Wars: The Phantom Menace (in 3D) and I was left "holding the fort". We had already reached the point where Music Man was being taken to the bathroom every 15 minutes.
Well, Ballerina was her own queen because she was pretty much ignored. I spent all of my attention on Music Man. I quickly realized that 15 minutes still wasn't frequent enough so I reduced it further to every 10 minutes. And each bathroom trip was lasting between 5-8 minutes (per a stopwatch -- I started timing just out of curiosity). Still, we weren't seeing success. We even saw another accident (and a big one at that). So I made a decision.
I was going to continue as I was doing until after lunch. Then when we came downstairs, Music Man was going to come to the toilet right away and he wasn't going to move until I saw a pretty significant urine stream work its way into the toilet.
We finished lunch and came downstairs at 1:10, so that's when the clock stopped. I brought down a bowl full of goldfish and candy (gummy bears and M&Ms). The timer was set to go off every 2 minutes. Each time it went off, if Music Man sat nicely, he would get 1 piece of candy of his choice (Ballerina got into that game as well). After about 45 minutes, I told them each last piece and put what was left (a few M&Ms) away. Now it was time to get serious. Music Man was still sitting on the toilet, but nothing had happened yet. We tried telling stories. We tried singing songs. Finally, I got MEAN. I pushed (hard) on his bladder. Oh, let me tell you, THAT got a reaction. He CLEARLY needed to pee and this was NOT what he wanted. We kept going until 3:35, when FINALLY, a large and strong stream came pouring out of that boy. And did he get praise!!!!!!
He got HUGE accolades from me. He got "High Fives". He got Hugs and Kisses. He got applause. You name it, he got it. And that includes an ice cream sundae for snack (that NEVER happens).
After snack he got finally got to play with his iPhone. He was too excited about that to have me turn on pbskids.org, so I'll save that until tomorrow.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like he got the message. He didn't wet himself for the rest of the afternoon, but after Dad took him to the bathroom before I went upstairs to get them ready for bed, he did it again. He really doesn't seem to mind when he's wet as long as he's sitting. But when he starts walking around the room, that's when the discomfort seems to set in. I guess we need to keep him moving all the time....perhaps tomorrow, when we notice he's wet himself we'll have him run a few laps before we change his clothes.....
He DOES like to be praised. And he got it both times he urinated in the toilet. I really think we found a key motivator. Now if he only minded being scolded, maybe we'd find a deterrent as well.....
Tune into tomorrow's chapter. That will mark the end of "Potty Training Boot Camp".
No comments:
Post a Comment