Potty Dance: Backwards?

On Sunday morning, I decided to be brave and put Cub in big boy underwear. I was a little scared, but didn't want to keep going back and forth between diaper/underwear/diaper/underwear. So, I put him in his Thomas undies and scooted him to Sunday School, forewarning his (very amazing) teacher.

I didn't get a chance to check on him between Sunday School and the service, so my first time to see him was a few hours later. I peeked in his room and saw that he was wearing his same pair of pants. Yay! No accidents! I asked his teacher how he did and she said, "Great!" followed by ... "He never went!"

EEK.

She took him several times, but he never went. I appreciated her tenacity and told her I'd give it a try. I took him to the kiddy bathroom and discovered there was a normal toilet in there. No wonder he was a tad shy ... he hadn't ever used a "big potty" before. I stripped him down and then remembered someone telling me something about sitting boys backwards on the toilet when they are first starting to train. So, I sat him up there backwards, with his legs resting on the toilet seat as though he were sitting on the floor. And, sure enough, BAM! That boy had been holding it in! I couldn't believe it--his first time to go in the big potty!

Backwards. Huh.

Then we went out to lunch and he had success with a big potty again, backwards, and no accidents. I'm guessing that backwards is comfortable because they are able to sit normally without having to straddle the potty (and for boys, it keeps the stream from shooting across the room).

That was Sunday, and our little man hasn't looked back.

We turned him around to face frontwards yesterday to straddle the potty and he did great. So, backwards isn't necessary anymore. But, it sure was handy in making him feel comfortable on the big potty! And, it prevented us from having to carry around a small padded seat for him. Now he's fine going forwards.

We haven't had an accident since Saturday and I'm going to go ahead and put it out there: I think our boy is potty trained, with going Number One. Now. By "potty trained", I don't mean that he suddenly declares, "I need to go potty!" and then walks to the bathroom, shuts the door, does his business, and comes back out! That independence will come later. He still needs a lot of help. We still take him about every hour and help him with his britches and such. But, he holds it until we go, and we've had success every time.

Now, for Number Two ... he's still sneaky. It primarily happens during nap time. I'm not too worried because I know it will just come with time. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. But (if he doesn't go Number Two), he stays dry during naps and all night, so I know he's learning.

Phew! In some ways, this hasn't been as hard as I thought, and yet it was still exhausting, so it did take a lot of work.

I'll let you know how the rest of it goes (ha, ha) when the time comes.

Time to get back to hanging out with the family in this crazy winter wonderland!

Have a lovely day.

EDIT: Y'all. As soon as I pushed the "Publish Post" button, Cub had an accident. HA! How's that for the Law of Parental Blogging? As soon as you say one thing, the child does another. So, no more posts about potty training!!