Down with diapers!

I have a new mantra: Down with diapers! Up until today, we have been going back and forth on the pottytraining thing with Jesse. Some days were good, some not so good. Today, however, I feel more confident about this pottytraining stuff, because today I got Jesse everything he needed: A potty training seat and his own underwear.

Yep, that's right. His first underwear! No more diapers!

I have, however, kept a few of his diapers on hand, mainly because he WILL be wearing them for his naps and at bedtime. But other than that, he's going to be wearing the underwear and not much else besides a T-shirt. I think it would be better if he mastered the whole picking up on when he had to go potty, experiencing the accidents and learning how to pull the underwear down and up thing before I add pants to that mix.

This is the way my mom pottytrained her kids and grandkids. I have heard of some parents letting their toddlers run around with NOTHING covering the bottom, but I don't feel comfortable about that. I think it's better to have him wearing underwear instead. Worked for my mom, so maybe it will work for us, too.

I have also noticed, as I worked with him today, that he got impatient waiting for something to happen while he sat on his potty. So I got a bunch of his books and put them into a drawer by his potty chair. I joked to Jennifer about how I never understood the whole "boys and reading while on the potty" thing and she admitted that she liked to read while using the potty, too. So she, too, had some of her books put into the bathroom. I guess I am the only one in this family who doesn't read while on the toilet!

The book thing worked like a charm. He quietly sat on his potty chair, going through his books. Sometimes, though, he would say he had to go potty and when he was on that thing, nothing happened. I think he just wanted to sit on an uber comfy seat and enjoy his books!

The potty chair I got for Jesse had an inflatable seat on it. I told Jennifer they didn't have anything like that when she was pottytraining and she was NOT happy. I told her the potty chairs they have for babies now are so different than what they had when she was a baby. Heck, one of them even plays music! And Jesse's even has a bar on it for toilet paper. We no longer have Jennifer's original pottytraining seat but it was interesting to compare how they were all different. The one thing that stayed the same, however, is that Jesse's chair can be converted to a stepping stool, just like Jennifer's was.

I'll be working with Jesse this week on getting this pottytraining thing down pat. And I just may start reading on the toilet, too -- not while using it!! -- because I have noticed that sometimes it takes him a while to go to the bathroom and determine if he is done.

At first, he wanted to check out the potty chair, take it apart and put it back together again, and I read this is normal at first. I am reading EVERYTHING I can on this pottytraining stuff -- not so much to refresh my memory but also because this time it is with a BOY! And I read that you should teach boys how to pee sitting down first, then later how to do so standing up. (That will be where his father will come in.)

It has been quite a challenge but I know it's important to stick with it. After all, Jesse is READY for this phase of his life. So I have to keep at it until he figures out how to do this on his own.