Extreme potty training with Josiah

Potty training ran my life for 3 days one month ago ... but the rewards have been GREAT and Josiah's inconsistency in his poo & pee habits are no longer running mine day in and day out! I began the saga for training Josiah back in the beginning of July. I could tell he had been "ready" for quite awhile and he did good for a little while ... but then he began to regress, I began to get frustrated and all in all I realized there was a lot of inconsistency that I was allowing to happen. That's when I ran across the 3 day potty training method and after reading it realized that it was the right fit for both Josiah and I. So after taking a 14 day break from doing anything I put it into practice the last weekend of October.

This is a snapshot of my first day: We got up and had breakfast together. We then took all his diapers and padded training pants and told them "goodbye". We got all his new underwear from the dryer and put them in his drawer. I took him to the bathroom and introduced him to his new weeman urinal and told him that pee and poo were going in the bathroom from now on because he is a BIG boy! Then we went about our day. He made it to the bathroom first thing to go poo - he likes to hold on to mom and put his little head in the crook of my neck while he "does his thing". It's a little stinky but that's what he needs for now ... that's when he told me that I was his favorite superhero - awesome!! The rest of the morning and afternoon was him peeing in his underwear (or rather on the floor) and me rushing him to the bathroom saying, "yucky, now your underwear is wet". I got peed on twice during that time and spent a lot of time w/ vinegar-water and a rag :) I spent a lot of the day saying, "tell mommy when you need to go pee" and "are you still dry?" "Good boy, keep your underwear dry"! Finally at dinner time we sat down for our meal and he said, "I need to go pee" - which he hadn't done for about 2 hours. Chris was home so we made it a family affair and we all went into the bathroom together to see him go pee in his new urinal. And BOY did he go!! He "dumped" it back in the toilet, got his treat and Ellie led the procession out to the livingroom so we could "jump for joy" ... although Josiah refused to jump for joy until we changed it to, "jumping for Penny" (from the movie Bolt). He did GREAT the rest of the evening and when it came time for bed he went pee w/ his daddy and we tucked him in ... prepared for a night of changing sheets ... which never happened! He came out 20 mins after we put him down to go pee one last time and then Chris took him pee @ 3am.

It's been one month since those 3 days and I am happy to say that Josiah is fully potty trained. He has moved from going pee in his wee-man urinal to standing on a stool and going pee "just like daddy". We are working on him going all by himself now - something I remember doing w/ Elizabeth when I first trained her. If he doesn't need my assistance he gets a special treat and he LOVES that incentive! He still has accidents now and then - but mostly just little leaks from waiting too long. It's still hit or miss during the night. Sometimes he'll keep his bed dry all night long and other times he has accidents all thru the night! I decided a few days ago to use the padded cloth pull-ups I used with Elizabeth when she was his age and I have cut my laundry in half!! All in all I am VERY happy to not have to wash cloth diapers every other day - I do not miss the diaper days one bit!

another reason I like cloth diapering

like cloth diapering? Let me rephrase that ... I LOVE cloth diapering! Since I've been doing it for 3 years and 3 months now I BETTER like it. I was recently reminded of my love when I left the kids w/ a babysitter for half a day - 1:30 - 8:00. I left her with paper diapers and during that time he was only changed twice!! I was appalled when I got home and counted the diapers I had left out - what?! Now, I'm not upset at the babysitter ... if I had been I would have chastised her immediately ... no, I'm just upset that paper diapers give the "illusion" of the child not needing to be changed! I would do it too! With cloth diapers if the kid is wet, you better change him! I can go a bit longer with an AIO than a regular cotton diaper but I still try not to!

Usually at home I use prefolds or fitteds so that I'm forced to change him more frequently ... part of this is so that he doesn't get comfortable in the pee - ick! When I'm out and about I use the AIO's so that I can go a bit longer ;) Another reason I like it - and this may sound very gross - but when I flush the poo down into the toilet I get to see how my baby is eating/digesting his food, I am intimate with my child's poo - and I'm ok with this (on most days)!

And how about the cost?! Well, I haven't bought a new cloth diaper in at least 9 months - maybe more - and I haven't purchased a paper diaper since December! How about that in savings?! I do buy paper inserts from time to time (makes the poo easy to dispose of, esp when out and about) but other than that my diaper-buying is very minimal.

I STILL use Charlie's Soap and I LOVE it! We use it for ALL our laundry because the actual washing machine has to be free of any other detergents for it to work properly and that would just be too much of a hassle any other way! If you ever decide to try it please give them my name and I'll get some free soap out of it - what a great company! I've also called and emailed Charlie's Soap with questions and they are VERY helpful over there!

Besides Charlie's Soap I also use Oxy Clean Free when washing my diapers - which I buy at Target every couple months or so .... as you can see my costs really ARE minimal!

Today is diaper day so I better get back to that load I have in the washer and get it hung up on the line to dry!

one reason I love cloth diapers

They look so beautiful on the line!

Gro Baby Diaper!

GroBaby was first brought to my attention by Jillians Drawers (one of my most favorite diaper sites). My friend Amber just told me about the contest they are having over on facebook. I've been doing cloth diapers for 2 years now and although I'm pretty set in the products I use (BumGenius, Fuzzibuns and my favorite staple the prefold diaper) I am ALWAYS open to trying new products. Especially if it makes my life easier! And that is just what these diapers seem to do - make the diaper changers life easier. I haven't tried them yet - but I would LOVE to! Having a inner shell that you can just change would make my life so much easier!

Check out GroBaby and if I am one of the lucky winners I'll post again about how they work!

Diaper Sprayer

I've been visiting my family up in Paradise, CA and I'm really missing my "Mini-Shower Diaper Sprayer". I use cloth diapers w/ both of my children. Ellie has a diaper service and I made hemp-fleece diapers for Josiah. I just do the old-fashioned pre-folds. I love cloth diapering and brought a combo of cloth and paper up to my parents house. I was planning on bringing my diaper sprayer from home, but the day before I left it stopped working. It is a great contraption because you just put the dirty diaper over the toilet and spray the nasties off w/o getting your hands dirty. The past 3 days I've been doing it the old fashioned way . . . dumping those nasties by hand and washing them in the toilet. Gross! I purchased a new diaper sprayer and can't wait to be using it again!!

almost the mid-way point!

I am tired . . . Chris has been gone for 6 days now . . . only 5 more days to go.

It's been good. Ellie has a hard time in the evenings . . . she misses her daddy time - but I've had SO much wonderful help! My friend Amy came over twice this week to take her off my hands for a few hours. What an absolute blessing it was! Our friends Mark & Marcy took us out for dinner last night and this Monday she is spending the night at Grandma's. I've had so many other offers of help and am so grateful for them all!

Ellie's sleeping pretty well. I think she may be going through some night terrors b/c she wakes up screaming at least once in the middle of the night and it doesn't take long to calm her down and rock her to sleep - but I hope this doesn't last too much longer!

I've almost accomplished all of my diaper making. Yes, I am making hemp/fleece diapers for the new baby. Prefolds, so they are pretty easy to make and not too time consuming. I think I have about half a dozen to make and I'll be all done!

Now it's off to bed, as soon as I finish one more diaper!

Here I go again . . .

Ellie's finally turned the corner in her teething and is doing much better! We had a CRAZY night with her on Thursday night. Shortly after I wrote my last post she began crying and I went in to see how she was doing. We had given her tylenol @ 8pm and it was 8:40. She was bothered by her teeth and so I held her for a bit before she climbed down off my lap and went for the bedroom door. I was curious to see what she would do . . . she walked to the open sliding glass door and walked outside all the way around to our bedroom. She was happy to see her daddy and for the next 15 minutes just wanted to play. Finally we put on a VeggieTale video and she watch 2 of them before getting Motrin @ 10 and going back to bed. At midnight she woke up crying in pain and there was nothing I could do to calm her down. Chris tried giving her a bath - she didn't like that and then they watched an Einstein Video. Finally at almost 1am she crashed and I heard her once more @ 4 and then again @ 5. I was wiped when she woke up @ 8:30 ready to go for the day! But like I said, she's doing much better and the other 2 molars are almost all the way in!

On another note - I LOVE cloth diapering for a variety of reasons and was excited to see an article put out by Time about them. It's a fairly balanced report - feel free to check it out HERE.

Finally, Chris and I spent the evening together. We went out to dinner and then to Barnes & Noble. It was so nice to just hang out w/o the little one running around. We ran into an old friend and caught up w/ him. Then we just sat upstairs and looked at some books. I have decided that I am going to purchase "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld (recommended by my good friend Amber on her blog Babywearing Buzz). I looked at that cookbook & the two "Sneaky Chef" books and decided I liked the ease and look of Seinfelds book much better. I'll be ordering it online so I'm SUPER excited to get it and start the recipes. If you want to check out some of the recipes for yourself CLICK HERE to go to Oprah's website!