Potty Training - The First Days

Day One:
Today went really well.  He wore "gitchies" all day and in the morning, he started to pee but my husband just told him to stop, he did and he finished on the potty.  He stayed dry (even when I put him in diapers to go to the library and for nap) and after nap while he was playing, he stopped, said "I PEE!" and ran to the potty to do his thing. 

Day Two:
He spent with his grandparents, so he spent the whole day in diapers.  He DID go #2 of the potty though, because they caught his little face crunching up and got him there fast!

Day Three: He spent the whole day in gitchies again today, but he had less successes (1) than he did accidents (3).  This was the most accidents we've ever had in a day up to this point.  This day made me nervous.  He also screamed lots when he was on the potty.  In the morning he screamed so much and so hard on that potty, I decided to go another route.  To leave him alone completely.  I would ask him, he would say no and then he would have an accident.  It was a bad day.

Day Four: We spent the majority of the day at my husbands parents today and again, we left him in diapers.  He didn't use the potty at all while we were there BUT he did successfully go before we left and when we came home, so it was better than the day before!



Did we follow the rules??

1) Train in sessions (a few hours) for two days in a row. Normal amounts of liquid and food.
Nah, we just went the whole day in "gitchies".  We started with the normal amounts of liquid, but he was just HOLDING it so well that we wound up giving him extra.

2) Put the child on the potty every 15 minutes for those sessions.
This wasn't needed in our house.  Every 5 minutes he was yelling "I PEE!" and running to potty.  He would pull down his "gitchies", sit for 1.3 seconds and then jump up, "No pee." And off he would go.

3) On the third day, the child goes all day without a diaper. Just let 'em go.
We did this from day one.

4) Allow your child to be naked all the time.
We did NOT let him run around naked, just because in Canada, it's a little frigid (even in April when we were doing this), we just let him wear "gitchies" and a shirt. No pants.

5) Rewards!
Our rewards were Temporary Tattoos (Cars and Thomas), stickers on his shirt and cookies (sometimes).  Sometimes he would get all three things if it was a long struggle.  My child looked like a biker with all those tattoos (and backwards hat, he has his own personality).

Here's my question to you though - If you have children, did you reward them for successfully going to the potty?  At work we had this discussion and I was surprised that I was the only person in the room that actually rewarded their child for this.  Not that I feel guilty, because I am my own person and I do my own thing, but I was just wondering if I am the only person in the WORLD that rewards - cause THEN maybe I would feel a little guilty . . .