Diaper Free!

It is official, we are completely diaper free...Cody is finally 100% potty trained!  It was my goal to have him potty trained by his 3rd birthday and started working on it a month before his birthday, but he made it very clear he was not interested.  About a week after his 3rd birthday, we had a completely free weekend where we had no where we had to go, so I decided to take advantage of it.  It also happened to be a hot weekend, so I took advantage of that and made sure we were outside as much as possible.  I decided the kids would have a water day with the slip-n-slide and pool and when I put Cody's swim suit on that morning, I decided not to put on a water diaper.  After some time outside, Cody needed to use the potty and forgot he had no diaper on and ended up peeing...he didn't like how it felt on his leg and so for the rest of the time outside, he decided it would be better to go potty inside on the big potty.  Success!  He did really well with minimal accidents for that long weekend and I was beginning to think, "man, this was so easy!"

Within a few days, we were traveling to North Carolina, so we decided it would be best to use diapers and pull ups some on the trip and he surprised us by staying dry.  We had some challenges and discovered he had a serious fear of public toilets, especially the ones that have the auto flush.  So, I ended up having to carry a diaper/pull-up with me and put it on him to go potty when we were out and about.  Ugh, two steps back!  Another challenge during this time was that he switched classrooms at school - new teachers, new rules, new friends to make.  The change was hard for him and we saw some regression with his potty training, having accidents at school and at home.  We decided bribery would help motivate him to start using the potty consistently and be accident free.  For him, mini marshmallows were his reward of choice (one for pee, two for poop) and we also and promised him that when he was completely potty trained (no more accidents, no more pull ups during the day and at night) that we would by him any toy truck he wanted (we were so ready to be done with diapers!).

It was a great motivator for him and after a few weeks, he finally got to pick out his toy truck.  We went to Wal-Mart and it was so fun to watch him shop.  We typically stay far away from the toy aisles at stores, so this was his first time really getting to walk through the toys, touching and holding them.  He was so excited.  He finally decided he wanted a big garbage truck...this kid is obsessed with garbage trucks...and left the store a very happy boy!

We are so proud of you Cody!