Tuesday, April 3, 2007

I'm holding my breath...

...that we may have hit upon the solution for Lukas' potty training woes! For the past several months, Lukas has been in underwear during the day, but he has "accidents" that aren't really accidents...he knew he had to use the toilet, but he couldn't really be bothered to do it. Of course, the accidents are usually when we're at home, because, as frequent readers of this blog will remember, HE LOVES TO USE THE TOILET WHEN WE'RE AWAY FROM HOME.

Carla loaned me a potty training book that is written by the same people who wrote the book Baby Wise, which Tom and I used with Lukas (and even for Natalie, her medical and feeding issues means we modified it more than with Lukas) to teach him to eat and sleep through the night by three months of age.

The answer to our particular problem is: we had been rewarding Lukas for using the toilet, and we should have been rewarding him for staying dry (more frequently than we were). So now I ask him every hour or so, "Are you dry?" If he is, he gets a Skittle, and he has been dry for several days in a row now. He also gets two Skittles for using the toilet and being dry.

Today we had the ultimate test. He wanted to use the sand box, and usually that means he plays for an hour or more and doesn't want to get out to use the toilet, so he wets himself. I told him he would only get Skittles if he's dry and if he peed in his pants, he wouldn't be able to use the sandbox for a long time, and after 30 minutes, he came in to use the toilet. That never happens!

Go Lukas!

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