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December 2010 Moms
kat81again2
member
talk to me about potty training and bed transitions
kat81again2
member
I think we're about to do both.
DS has been encouraged to use the potty for months now (like since his bday or earlier, maybe) and has occasionally tried here and at school. Recently there has been an uptick in successful attempts, including our first and second poops on the potty. Also...related to my second issue...DS sometimes strips down during/after his nap and pees in his crib. This morning he stripped down and didn't pee before I got him, but then went on the potty when I brought him in there. It really seems like he's ready now. If he sits on the potty and clearly "tries," he usually pees (he doesn't always want to try, but if he's obviously trying he can do it.) We have been really lax about it so far. At school they have a schedule for diapering/potty, but at home we only try in the morning and before bath. We don't specifically try other times.
So what's the next step? Make a schedule to try at home on the weekends, like every hour? Start rewarding successful attempts? (Now we do nothing but praise and DS is proud of it, so it works, but I wonder if we should add a treat to get him to go regularly.) Do we try to do a weekend blast with underwear, or should we not try underwear until we're way farther along? I totally don't know what I'm doing.
So, our second issue -- it's really time for a bed. We bought DS's bed (a regular twin) this fall and planned on transitioning him a few months ago, but didn't yet. Now we feel like we have the time/ability to (in case he keeps getting out of bed and we never get sleep for a week while he transitions.) We read the pediatric recommendations and they said to put the crib mattress on the floor first rather than going to a twin, so the kid has less distance to fall. What did you do? We were thinking the twin mattress is not that thick so it would be ok, plus it's much bigger so maybe a fall is less likely. We have the box springs but will not use them at first.
The only two things we need to set up in preparation (other than getting the bed up to his room) are 1) better child-proofing of the house, in case he is out and about, and 2) installing the newly purchased video monitor in his room. I guess I'd like to know if he's still in his bed vs. awake and playing with toys, or asleep on the floor or whatever.
Please let me know what other PTing or bed-transition tips you have. I feel overwhelmed we are doing this all now but it's really time for both. Plus I just finished for the semester so I can devote more energy to this now. DS absolutely needs to be potty trained by January for daycare reasons. Other than that we are relaxed about it but given the new baby coming in Sept I don't want that to disrupt him too much (I either want to PT fully before or after then.)
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Re: talk to me about potty training and bed transitions
I'd say he's ready for both! I don't have much to say regarding the PTing since we're just starting to get there ourselves but will wait until July since we have a baby coming any day now
but for the bed transition - we moved C into her toddler bed a few months ago and if I could do it over again I would probably skip it and go right for the full bed (like you're doing). If you have a bed rail than I wouldn't even bother with the mattress on the floor. I think this would make him feel like it's still enclosed like his crib was. And come up with a plan for what to do if/when he gets out of his bed and refuses to sleep. This might not happen to you but for us, we didn't have a plan and it seemed so frustrating and we had lots of trials and errors (my DH would let her sleep with us in the middle of the night because he was too tired/lazy to put her back to bed repeatedly....wouldn't recommend that AT ALL!). After some research we decided that the super nanny site was what we would use as a guide. It took a month but now we're on track and know what to do 
Best of luck!
Thanks for the advice! I appreciate the validation about us going straight to a full bed because I know a lot of people do toddler beds first. We figured why not go straight to the regular one?
We haven't talked about the "plan" specifically but I already knew from reading, talking to people, and yes super nanny (I saw one episode once but it dealt with this in particular), that you just have to keep putting them back in bed, over and over and over and over without talking, without reasoning, without any treats, etc. And it's complete hell for a few days but then they are all better shortly thereafter. Basically just like sleep training when the kid is a baby. They need to know you mean business. I'm glad you got it figured out yourselves!