Big Potty

Max has been doing a great job pooping on his little bear potty ever since we got back from our vacation. But, in the interest of having to deal with as little poop as possible, Dad and I have been trying to encourage Max to use the potty insert on the "big potty." Of course, Max being Max, he was quite content with his little bear potty and had absolutely no interest in pooping on the big potty, in spite of the fact that he virtually always pees on the big potty now. Even though our efforts have been unsuccessful, we'd keep trying to encourage him to use the big potty, while trying not to turn him off of the pooping on the potty business altogether (because, let's face it – poop in the little potty is far better than poop in the diaper ;). So, today, I thought I'd give it another shot, but try a different approach. Max's potty success to date has really been a result of a low-pressure approach – if you give him an ultimatum ("you have to sit here and poop on the potty") he usually resists, but if you just make him go through the motions, with no pressure to actually do something, he usually ends up doing it.

So, just like with Max's initial potty training, I just started putting him on the big potty for a few minutes at a time and just telling him he had to sit there until the timer went off. Toward the end of the day, when I knew he had to go, I got a handful of M&Ms and started bribing him to fart. Of course, where there is smoke, there is usually fire, so he ended up pooping on the big potty before he knew it. After we cleaned him up, Max peered into the toilet to inspect his work, saw the big poop and the little poop, and squealed, "Mama, look!! There's a baby poop and there's a mama poop!" Once again we made a big deal out of his potty success and he not only go to eat the remainder of the M&Ms, he also got to spend some time on Noggin. He was very proud to tell Dad about his "big poop on the big potty" when Dad woke up.

Max has been happily pooping on the big potty all weekend and enjoying his computer time rewards. Mama has been enjoying not having to clean up poopy diapers OR clean poop out of little potties. Given that we now have two kids who are virtually potty trained, this might be one of the last poop-centric post you all get to read. ;) But, since I know potty training is a subject of great interest to parents in general, I thought I'd send it out there!