Potty Training D-Day!

Enough is enough! We have tried the whole "child-centered" approach to potty training for boys since Hayden turned 2 in January. You know, we just wanted to introduce him to it slowly, let him get accustomed to it, read books about it, watch "Elmo's Potty Time" 8,000 times, and even invent a sticker reward system. Hayden knows what the potty is and what he is supposed to do in it, he just flat doesn't want to. He has tee-teed in the potty several times, but never gone number 2!

I have read EVERYTHING on how to potty-train little boys---and I SWEAR if one more mother of a little GIRL who does not also have a little boy tells me "Well, girls are so much easier to train than boys," I'm going to go ballistic! I just want to look at them and say, "well that's great, but I have a little BOY I'm trying to potty train, not a little girl, so thanks for sharing!" Now, we have a little girl now and I am slowly learning how very DIFFERENT girls are from boys, but we still have a VERY long time before we have to potty-train Peyton.

I found this awesome article on how we coddle our kids too much in today;s society when it comes to potty-training because we don't want to "push" them. According to this article, back in the 1950's and 1960's 95% of little boys were potty trained by the time they were 18 months old compared to the meager 10% that are potty trained by that age today!!! That's ridiculous! Basically what you have to do is go completely COLD TURKEY!! No diapers, no pull-ups, NOTHING! So that's what we're going to do this weekend! Hayden is almost 2 and a half years old and there's no reason why he shouldn't use the potty. So starting tomorrow when I pick him up from daycare, I'm taking him home and putting him in big boy underwear...NO MORE DIAPERS!

I know this means that we (Davin has already told me this means ME since this is my idea, ha!) will have SEVERAL accidents this weekend and LOTS of messes to clean, but I am prepared for it and Hayden hates to be dirty so I figure after the first few times he goes potty on himself, he'll figure out that's gross and be able to use the potty. If this doesn't work, then I guess my house will just smell like a toilet, I'll have a naked two year old running around, and I'll be sitting in the corner covered in pee and crying. Here goes nothing!
I'll keep you posted!
-Spencer