Potty Training, Take: whatever take

Even though Ivan exhibited a very early interest in using the potty as soon as I bought the potty last May, my half-hearted efforts to fully potty train him have really fallen flat over the last year.

He got the concept of using the potty immediately and promptly started going on the potty whenever he was naked. I thought training him would be a breeze. But no. Every attempt at putting him in underwear failed.

Last week, potty training got turned up a notch.

All kids but one in his three year-old classroom, into which he transitioned when he turned three last month, are potty training. There is another child in pull ups but that's it. Ivan was still wearing diapers. The teacher takes them potty all at the same time, so I assume the kids basically see and know who's potty trained and who's not.

Since I had heard ambivalent remarks whether pull ups are a good transition toward underwear or whether they simply prolong the diaper stage, I was on the fence and was hoping that we could potty train him without that extra step.

Then two weeks ago, Ivan threw a fit when Andy took him to daycare on Tuesday. He didn't want to leave the house to go. We had a very difficult time getting him dressed. He wanted to stay home with mama. Once at daycare, he didn't want to go to Ms. Rosa's classroom (the three year-old classroom) but wanted to go to see Ms. Yvonne, his old two year-old classroom teacher. He also cried for mama, especially at nap time, which is something he had never done before. Since this happened a few days after I heard him talk in his sleep about diapers, we concluded that he probably was embarrassed about being the only one in diapers, but since he didn't want to give up diapers that the only way not to be embarrassed was to return to the old classroom, where most of the kids are still in diapers.

The same thing happened on Wednesday. Ivan didn't want to go to daycare. He called out and cried for mama. For the first time ever, Medic accompanied Ivan to daycare so they could nap. I called Ms. Rosa to see how he was faring, and decided to put him in pull ups. Apparently, Ivan had said in class over the last few weeks that "mama is at home with the baby," which probably really bothers him. I assumed he didn't realize that I'm at home with Allen, but that I go to work like I had done in the past.

That day, I went to pick him up from daycare. On the way home we went to Rite Aid to buy pulls up. He helped me pick them out. In theory, he did. He got too distracted with the deodorant displays which were behind us. When we came home, I changed him and put on pulls up. My initial plan was go change him into underwear when he's home and use pulls up for daycare, but he didn't want anything to do with underwear. Initially, he didn't want anything to do with pull ups either. He resisted them I had laid out various Allen's diapers (for small baby), Ivan's diapers (for big baby), pull ups (for big boys), swim diapers (which look like pull ups) and underwear, and then explained who wear what. He wanted diapers. After trying to reason with him and get him to wear pull ups for an hour or so, I finally gave up and left the room. However, my mother who was over, persisted, and some half an hour later, Ivan materialized downstairs in pull ups. I asked her what magic she used to get him to acquiesce to pulls up. Nothing, she said. She just sat there with him and eventually he asked her to put on the pull ups.

He's been wearing pulls ups ever since. I now make a bit deal about changing him now in the bathroom and taking off pulls up as if they were underwear, instead of unvelcroing them off like diapers.

That Thursday, he went to daycare in pulls up. It was still a traumatic daycare drop off, Andy said, but less so that the previous two days.

Then this past week, he was fine. He didn't say anything about wanting or not wanting to go to daycare.

Whether it was the pulls up that did the trick or whether that one week was a pure aberration, I don't know. In any case, we seem to be through with diapers. Now if we can only make it to underwear.