Abort Mission!!

Some of you may remember a couple of weeks ago when we introduced the whole potty thing to Grady. It was really just a time of feeling things out and seeing if he would be ready for the real deal. So, we did that...showed him the potty, let him sit on it a few times, checked out his interest in it all, watched a couple of videos from the library, etc. He showed definite interest, but it was intermittent. He also showed definite signs of readiness other than being interested, but didn't display even a majority of the signs. Still, we figured it was enough to give it a concentrated effort.

Well, this past Thursday and Friday we did that. We had gotten all of the needed materials...real training pants, vinyl pants, potty, a timer, etc. We had decided to do the real training pants and go full force with it. So, we started out the day putting on the big boy underwear and going potty. Grady wasn't too impressed with how the day seemed to be going from the get-go. Still we pressed through, making it exciting and fun...adding a bank with money to put in the bank for incentive (he likes money...it was incentive and treat enough for him) to the mix. That worked well, but by mid-morning I had realized that it wasn't working...we would sit him on the potty, but nothing would happen...and he hadn't wet his pants either. I would take him about everything 30 minutes, but he just wasn't drinking enough to get things going enough to be able to train him on a consistent level. So, off to the store I went to get some apple juice. I wasn't able to go to the store until their naptime, so after his afternoon nap, we started with the juice. That worked VERY well in getting his bladder going regularly, but we never got to the point of being able to actually work through the first part of the training...helping him to realize that wet pants were not what he wanted and how to recognize when he needed to go, etc. The deal was this...he was just hating it. He didn't want to go to the potty. He was crying about going to the potty and asking for a diaper. We tried the same thing initially on Friday...you know, a new day, maybe a different outcome. Same thing happened.

There are definite things that kids don't want to do that you have to make them realize they have to do anyway, but we just felt it wise not to push it at this point. If, in the future, we are SURE that he is ready and really wants to do this and has in fact done it, then he regresses and decides that he doesn't want to do it anymore, we will know that he can indeed do it and is just being fickle. But, we weren't even to that point yet. So, we will hold off. The 2 main reasons:

1. Just felt like he wasn't ready and having fun with it.
2. We started thinking hard about it and decided that it would be way easier on us too. If we are indeed traveling alot this year, we don't want to have to be stopping every 5 minutes on the road or in the airports to find a bathroom and dealing with possible accidents...hello...not relaxing.

So, it was just made clear that we will wait, possibly until this time next year to do it. Then, who knows...maybe I will just potty train Grady and Hadley at the same time. :) What are your thoughts?