Baek-il and Potty Training

We celebrated E's Baek-il (100 day birthday) a week late, but we made it happen! We invited some friends over for the BYU football game and stuffed ourselves with yummy food! 

Also, we potty trained J this past week! We used the 3-day potty training method. I feel like I didn't do the first day right, but J had no accidents on the 4th day and he told me every time he had to go! (The following paragraph is the potty story, skip if not interested, scroll for pictures)... it's more for my records)

We "threw away" J's diapers on day 1. We committed ourselves to potty training! It was a really hard day. We gave J a lot to drink, and unsurprisingly he had accidents left and right. By nap time,  J had gone through all his underwear and was crying for his diapers. I was about to throw in the towel too. The afternoon went a little better, but only because he didn't drink as much. At the end of the day it occurred to me that I don't only need to be watching J for potty training, but be within two feet of him at all times. Day 2 (restart of the method), I literally didn't separate myself more than a couple feet from J. Whenever he started to have an accident, I picked him up and rushed him to the potty. We cheered every success (as little as it was sometimes). I did this all day until I could really tell that J was going to have an accident before he actually did (he stops abruptly, stands, spreads his knees, and looks down). This was key for the next day, day 3. Since I knew when he was about to have an accident, I could verbally signal to J that he needed to go potty. In the afternoon, J started to realize that he was going to have accident before actually having the accident. He started to tell me he needed to go potty! Day 4, no accidents, and he communicated to me every time he had to go! We've had a couple of accidents since, but he is doing great! No accidents at church today (He used the potty twice)! We are still working on night time training...advice is welcome!

The biggest things I learned: Commit and drop the diapers cold turkey, and don't go back. Give time to let J know what it's like to pee in underwear. Figure out the cues that J has before peeing. Then help J recognize the cues himself. Ask "Let me know if you need to go potty" every 3 minutes and don't expect a verbal response for a couple of days, and always be positive! Reward for having dry underwear, and never punish for accidents, only praise the successes! I'm so proud of my big boy!

Throwing his diapers away.