So we’ve started the dreaded ‘Potty Training’! Honestly, I have been stressing about this since before Elliott was born! But, he’s 3 in May and due to start nursery school in September so I really needed to get a wriggle on and get him out of nappies!

Ideally, I would have liked to have had him out of nappies sometime after he was 2 but he was a late talker. I thought teaching a little boy how to pee in a pot after 2 years in a nappy was hard enough without making it even harder by him not being able to actually tell me that he needed to go. I had originally intended on starting training over the Christmas break but due to several illnesses (of the D&V variety) I thought it best to wait a while.

So now it is time. I have ran out of excuses to postpone it, hes perfectly healthy, his vocab is growing nicely and he is now aware of what is going on his nappy – let’s do this!

Day One: I started giving his nappy free time, luckily we’ve had the potty in the living room for a while now so he knows that he needs to sit on it. I kept on reminding him that if he needed a wee wee he had to tell mama or sit on his potty. He was naked from the waist down, running around as usual and I was constantly on edge (not helpful, I know) I kept asking him if he needed a wee, he would sit on the potty and…..nothing. This carried on for an hour and a half. In this time he had had 2 big cups of milk and I was hopeful that any time now he would have to go! He sat on the potty and then started to freak out, as if the thought of going to the toilet on the potty was scaring him. As it had been over and hour and a half, and him having drank so much I was afraid of him getting an infection or something from holding it in so I put him in a nappy. And you guessed it – almost as soon as I had put the nappy on he had a wee. Then he asked for his nappy off and wanted to sit on the potty again! Needless to say, I was so frustrated!

Day Two: Started with nappy free time again and also bought a new potty (Paw Patrol because he’s in love with them at the moment and I thought in my motherly wisdom it may make the potty seem more invited and he wouldn’t freak out again – OK, I was grasping) We had 4 accidents on Day Two. One on Daddy’s computer chair – which I found absolutely hilarious, one in his pants (which was both one and two – those just went straight in the bin) one by the window and the last one i managed to catch in his potty!! I was honestly like a woman possessed, I was jumping up and down, cheering, singing – you name it, I was doing it. I was going to make him feel like he’d just done the best thing ever! I was really hoping we were on our way to cracking this thing

Day Three – Five: I’ve grouped these days together because I was at work so Elliott was at his usual childcare of my parents, my in-laws and grand in-laws. I wasn’t expecting him to carry on with the potty while he was there due to the change in environment but he did really really well, a few accidents and a few successes!! I bought him some pull-up nappies for when we were out and about as he hadn’t quite grasped letting us know when he needed the toilet, if he was wearing pants he thought he was in a nappy so he’d just go as if he was so I thought if i got him these and called them pants he’d start to let us know but also without the added mess if we were out and about.

Day Six: We are getting it! He still required prompting to sit on his potty but we have had no accidents and all on the potty! Still have yet to have another number 2 on there (he had one at my mother-in-laws but that could have been a fluke!) Carrying on with the no pants as i think it’s just confusing him, going to try and get him to crack using it without prompting first before we introduce big boy pants into the equation – baby steps as they say

Day Seven: By Jove I think we’ve got it!!!!!! We woke up and went into the bathroom where I had put the potty the night before and pulled Elliott’s pants down and asked him if he wanted a wee wee – and he had a wee! And then the best thing happened, honestly I am without a doubt the proudest parent in the world right now! Elliott was playing over the other end of the room on his trampoline, no nappy on as usual and i heard ‘Oh no’ my heart sank, I thought he’d got so wrapped up in playing that he’d had an accident. No sooner had I had that thought , he came running across the room, sat on his potty and did a wee! He actually realised that he needed to go and went to the potty!! I really think we may be on our way to success!!

So that was our first week of potty training! I am so happy with the progress we have both made, I am no longer constantly hovering over him, anxious that he’s going to have an accident and he is realising when he needs a wee and going to the potty all by himself. I realise that my anxiety probably wasn’t helping the situation and was almost definitely making it harder for him to relax and get this at his own pace. I am so ready for the next week, hopefully we can introduce pants and teach him to tell us when he needs to go so we can help him.

I’m going to look into some portable potty’s that we can take out with us so I can get him used to going other places than the house – if anyone has any recommendations, please pop it in the comments.

Written by Kayleigh at And Then There Were Three.

You can follow her on Instagram here.