Yay, Tucker!! :)

I have such great news, Tucker is SO well on his way to being potty trained!!! :)

Warning---this post is all about the potty details of a 5-year-old, you may be grossed out!! (I know I was, haha)

Tucker went from being 100% in diapers last Friday, to now only wearing them at night.  I am honestly shocked by how well he did, and I am pretty surprised that Chris and I really stuck to the plan.  The ABA potty training program had 3 typed pages of instructions, and several detailed charts to fill in as we went along. I am all about instructions and rules, so I read over the lists several times. We planned to spend the long weekend stuck inside, teaching Tucker to use the potty (there was a tropical storm anyways, it's not like we could go anywhere!).  On Friday night Chris and I looked over the charts and discussed how ready we really were to get rid of the diapers....we were SO ready! But we weren't so ready to push Tucker into something he may not have wanted, and/or been ready for, only to punish him for messing up. We agreed that Tucker would just wear underwear for the 3 days, and we would stick exactly to the plan. If by Monday night it was obviously not working, then we'd put his diaper on and let Tucker relax for a few months until trying again.

Chris was on-call for work, meaning that at anytime the plant could call him to come in. He is on call about once every two months, and with the tropical storm and the cooler weather, we did not anticipate him having to go to work. Of course we were wrong. So on Saturday morning Chris left at 6am, and was gone until noon. I ended up with the ugliest part of the potty training, the beginning with all of the accidents.

When Tucker woke up, I put his underwear on him and took him to the potty. He had a new Superhero potty seat, which he was not too excited about.  He loves his new Cars underwear, so that was good! I had a goody bag of reinforcers ready, with Cheetos, chocolates, and gummy bears (he doesn't eat gummy bears, but he loves the bears of course). We also had Chris's power drill ready to go....Tucker loves playing with that, thinking he is fixing things. I put 8oz of water into Tucker's tummy every 30 minutes, then took him to the potty exactly 1 minute later.  He had to sit until he made pee pee; he usually went right away, so then he got "yay, Tucker!" and an edible prize to lick. He also got to push the drill for a few seconds to hear it make the noise.  The plan was to do this every 30 minutes until Tucker self-initiated the potty routine. This just means that at some point, he was supposed to realize that he had a need to go to the bathroom, and he wouldn't wait to be placed on the potty, but actually go there himself.

With all of the fluids, of course he had accidents. For the accidents, we had the Positive Practice Procedure. We make Tucker keep on the wet underwear, we scold him "NO, we do NOT pee pee in our underwear!" then take him to the potty and say "we pee pee on the potty! Let's practice." Then he has to take off his underwear, sit on the potty, then get immediately up. We return to the site of the accident, and say "NO, we do NOT...." again, then repeat the whole trip to the potty....5 times! The point is that you drill into their heads that you are not supposed to use their underwear, you are supposed to use the toilet.....and doesn't using the potty in the first place save you a lot of hassle?  lol

At the end of this, you are supposed to get them to help you clean up, this whole process is supposed to be very aversive, while pee peeing on the potty is extremely fun and rewarding.  The instructions said several times "the child will have many accidents, do not get discouraged, this is expected." Thank goodness the notes said that, because Tucker had so many accidents at first. And since I was giving him so much water, he was going often and a lot at once! After the first time he "helped" me clean up, he thought it was so much fun; so from then on I cleaned up and made him watch me, which made him mad.  Mrs. Amy (the ABA consultant) said that the PPP only works if the punishment is aversive; well, it turns out that Mommy yelling at Tucker isn't so scary. ;)

Once Chris was home at noon, and he saw my hair all pulled out and the house full of pee pee (slight exagerration), he was a little worried.  When Tucker had an accident while staring Chris right in the face, Chris tried the PPP. Well, that had quite a different effect. It didn't make Tucker magically potty trained, but he certainly was not happy that his daddy was upset with him.  By Saturday afternoon, Tucker was pee peeing every 10 minutes! I charted 43 successful potty trips on Saturday.  I think we went through 10 or 11 pairs of underwear on Saturday. We all had a heart-to-heart in the bathroom (which is pretty tough, if you've seen the size of our bathroom, you know the 3 of us barely fit in it at once), I explained to Tucker that he couldn't have sleep overs or go to the hunting camp if he kept peeing on the floor, I told him how he could be such a big boy and do so many more things if he would just pee pee on the potty. Later, after Tucker was asleep in bed (with a Good Nite Pull Up on), I was so upset. I felt like Tucker was working so hard, and trying so hard, and he just wasn't sure why we were so frustrated with him.  Throughout Tucker's life, he has always had to work SO much harder than anyone else, just to achieve things that most people take for granted. I was pretty worried that Sunday and Monday weren't going to get better, but we were going to try our best.

 On Sunday morning, Tucker was excited to put on his underwear. He was much more used to the potty routine, and he would make pee pee, then say "Cheeto!" or "drill!" because he knew he got to pick a prize.  He still had a few accidents, but he was going every 20 minutes instead of 10, so we caught him more often before he had an accident.  Sarah and Brad came over around 1230 to pick up the Pampered Chef orders for my family (I hosted a Pampered Chef Fundraiser for the UMDF last month, we raised $200!!), and Tucker was very excited to see them. They also brought their dog, Bullet, a bulldog that Tucker just loves.  Two times during their visit, we noticed that Tucker needed to potty, so we took him. Sarah and Brad screamed "yay, Tucker!" and he got to sit at the table and eat cheetos with Brad.  He was SO proud of himself.

After they left, Chris and I decided to be more dangerous....we weren't going to bring Tucker to the potty every 15-20 minutes, even though he needed to go that often. The instructions said to bring him every 30 minutes, and wait for him to initiate the potty routine in between. So......we filled him with fluid, and we waited....

About 5 minutes later, Tucker started crossing his legs, shifting his weight, doing the "potty dance," but he was way too into his tree house toy to get up.  Chris and I just stared at him and waited, ready to clean up the mess. Then at some point he looked up and said "pee pee on the potty." We were so excited, we raced him to the potty and he pee peed right away.  He clapped and said "yay, Tucker!" Over the next few hours, we continued to push fluids, but let him initiate the potty routine, and he did great! After a few more trips to the potty he had his fill of cheetos, so he asked "go to poppy's house." Chris and I were nervous about taking him in the carseat, but my parents live less than 5 minutes away.  We were also going stir crazy from being stuck in the house.  So we told Tucker if he got 5 stickers we could go to Poppy's house.  This means that he had to pee pee in the potty 5 more times without accidents. He was not at all happy with this plan, he likes to get what he wants immediately.

There was one time when he had 3 or 4 stickers on the chart, but he had an accident, so the chart had to start back from zero. At one point, I caught him trying to add stickers to the chart! But anyways, finally, he got to 4 stickers and was due for a potty time.  Chris put the carseat in the truck, we packed Tucker's bag, got him dressed (he had worn only underwear all day), and waited for him to pee pee on the potty one more time so that we could leave. Well, he wouldn't! He just didn't have to go.  He cried and cried to leave, and Chris and I were wondering where all of the water had gone, because Tucker had no need to use the potty.  We considered just leaving, and rushing to my parents then putting him on the potty there, but I knew that as soon as he was in the car, he'd pee pee all over his carseat. So we just waited.....finally, he had to go, and we all went to the potty. He pee peed, he got his sticker, and we ran out of the door. We took the potty chair with us, and over the hour that we visited, he pottied at my parents' house twice with no accidents :)

That night when we got home, Tucker made a BM on the potty, too, we were so excited! We called all of his grandparents and texted everyone, at this point we had no shame, it was hysterical.  Tucker got a big bowl of popcorn for his efforts, and he was just so pleased.

On Monday, we kept with the routine, and Tucker literally had zero accidents. He asked for Sissy and Pops on Monday morning, but we made him complete the sticker chart again to earn a trip there. By Monday, the house was looking terrible, as all we did for two days was follow Tucker around. So on Monday I cleaned a good bit and did the grocery shopping. Chris was called out to work again, but it wasn't nearly as big of a deal because Tucker did so well that day.  I decided to wash and change out all of the sheets on the beds. Tucker has a day bed, and as I was changing the trundle bed sheets, I noticed something under the bed---it was Black Bear, Tucker's favorite bear that had been missing for weeks. I had cleaned under that bed last week and even vacuumed, but I didn't see Black Bear....so I told Tucker that Black Bear came back to play with him because how he was a big boy. Tucker was SO excited, then he took all of his other bears out of the room (little bear, teddy bear, and Pooh bear), and just held Black Bear, he kicked those other poor bears to the curb.

So the day wore on, and as Tucker was going potty less frequently (more like every 45 minutes), it took a while to get enough stickers to visit Chris's parents. But he finally did, and I made sure he used the potty before we left. Chris's parents live about 10 minutes away, and I didn't want any accidents on the way. I brought his potty seat, and as soon as we drove up, we ran inside, and Tucker used the potty. Then he played for a long time, and almost an hour later told us he had to potty. So, we were ecstatic, because Tucker understood that he has to use the potty at both sets of grandparents' houses, there wasn't going to be any confusion about that. 

Yesterday Tucker went back to school, and I think his teacher was shocked when I told her that Tucker was doing so great. I sent extra pairs of underwear, but he didn't have a single accident at school. They took him to the potty more often, because he needs to realize that the teacher and paras expect him to use the potty there, too. Mrs. Amy was amazed. Honestly, so are we. 

Tucker does everything on his own time schedule. He had no interest in the potty until about a month or so ago, so we are just so surprised by his quick progress.  Chris and I are taking him to Houston on Friday for an appointment with the sleep specialist, and then an overnight sleep study. We are pretty nervous to travel the 5 1/2 hours with our newly potty training kiddo, so I guess we will be making lots of pit stops. Hopefully he won't need to go pee pee while we're on the long Atchafalaya bridge! ;)