These last few days, potty training has gone about like I predicted it would. Not nearly as good as day 2 and not nearly as bad as day 1. I'd say Lincoln goes in the potty about 50% of the time give or take a little depending on the day. Sometimes a little better, sometimes a little worse. He hasn't pooped in the potty yet, only in his pants. :( But we're working on that. I still haven't dared to take him out in public with only his underwear on. When we go out I put a pull-up on him, but we still take our "potty breaks" when we're supposed to. He does pretty well out in public.
Our biggest challenge these last few days has been trying to keep Lincoln interested in being on the potty. I think he's getting bored with it. I've moved the time between potty attempts from 20 minutes to 30 or 35 minutes, depending on if he went previously or not. That seems to help some. We've also had to come up with new activities to do while on the potty. We've invented "the potty ball" which actually wasn't meant to be for Lincoln at all, it's an elastic band ball for a craft I'm doing, but when I brought it home he wanted to play with it, and I told him he could if he'd sit on the potty. It soon became the "potty ball" and he only gets to play with it while sitting on the potty. I also found some bubble up in the cupboard that had been long forgotten about. We now only blow bubbles while Linc is on the potty. And, the very best, most persuasive tactic of all...if nothing else I can think of will work, I offer to let him call Grandma and talk to her on the phone while sitting on the potty. Not really sure how she feels about it, but she goes along really well and always acts excited when Linc calls to tell her he's sitting on the potty. :)
I do think we're making progress. For one thing, I think he's learning how to hold it. He goes a lot less frequently than he did the first day, and I'm giving him the same amount to drink. And when he does go on the potty (and on the floor for that matter) there is a lot more in there when he's done, instead of just the few drops like there was the first few days. I think he's also starting to recognize a little bit when he has to go. Not enough to run to the potty himself, but enough that he starts shouting, "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" or sometimes it's "I need help! Help me!" and other times, "I'm freezing! I'm freezing!" (No, I don't know why he associates being freezing with having to go to the bathroom, maybe it's that tingly feeling, I have not idea, but that's what he means by it.)
Lincoln does a lot better in the morning than in the afternoons. That's probably a direct reflection on me. I tend to be a lot more patient and fun in the mornings, and a lot more cranky in the afternoons, especially if naps did not go very well. And frankly, being the sole source of potty entertainment gets really old, really quickly. So that is something I could work on. But we are moving forward. No, we did not have the miraculous-2-day-potty-training-and-then-zero-accidents experience I was secretly hoping for, but I doubt very many people do.
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