Who’s ready to talk potty?!! I feel like I have been living in the potty. Today marks two weeks since we started potty training so I figured now would be a good time to write up a post about how we conquered this. Potty training in three days – trust me, it can happen. Of course all kids are different and you should do what is best for you and your child developmentally.

My hope is that this will make a great resource for other parents as well as myself when it’s time to potty train baby sister (who will be here in less than 3 weeks, crazy!). If you are wondering where to begin – go ahead and purchase this book. Thank you to our good friends who recommended this to us! 🙌🏻

“You are the parent. You can do this.”

Start reading it now if you are even thinking about potty training in the near future. I read through it a couple times before we actually began and it has great advice for how to prepare your child leading up to the big day. I say “big day” because it is a big day. The day you say goodbye to diapers forever and for good!

My husband and I decided together that Harrison was ready to be potty trained and we wanted to get it done before baby #2 arrives at the end of August. We knew that once she arrived, we might not have the time to dedicate to it and we would probably put it off a little too long.

Following a well-conceived and well-structured plan is the key to toilet-training success. With successful toilet training, your child will have a better self-image and better focus. When you can throw the diapers away after just three days, the result is a beaming, happy, confident child.

– Dr. Frederic Daum

Wondering if your child is ready?

The author of the book, Brandi Brucks, says your child is ready when at least three of the following five things are true:

1. Your child tells you when they need or want to be changed.
2. Can remain dry for up to two hours at a time.
3. Has one or two bowel movements during the day and they’re not very hard.
4. Able to follow simple directions.
5. Shows interest in the bathroom.

Harrison was not doing the first one, which you might think is the most important one, right?! Before we started the 3 day method he had sat on the potty but never actually peed in the potty. Brandi says the golden age for training seems to be between 2.5 and 3 years old. Harrison will be 2.5 at the end of September.

5 Important Things to Note:

• Do not use a little potty, teach your child to go where they will end up going and not to be afraid of the big potty
  • I bought this seat and stool for him to use
• Boys are not harder to train than girls
• Your child will not tell you when they are ready to be potty trained – this is your decision!
• Pull ups will not help with training, they feel the same as diapers and your child will pee in it just like they did in the diaper
• Taking your child to the bathroom every 30 minutes and sitting them on the potty is not going to work, do you have to go to the bathroom every 30 minutes?

Preparing For The Three Days

Choose a reward that your child will be really excited about. At first I was going to use raisins but he eats them almost every day so we chose gummy bears. I like to buy the organic kind that aren’t loaded with artificial dyes or flavors 😬. You give one reward for peeing in the potty and two for pooping in the potty. Make sure you have lots of undies. We started with 7 pairs which I was a little nervous wouldn’t be enough. I also ordered another pack of super cute boxer briefs. It’s funny how excited he gets about picking out which ones to wear.

The Three Days

1. Ditch the Diapers – First thing you do is go around the house and collect all the diapers with your child and throw them away (or at least pretend to throw them away).
2. Start Strong – Put on the undies and tell him what a big boy he is and constantly remind him to tell you when he has to go potty. We often used the phrase, remember we need to keep our undies clean and dry! You watch him like a hawk, no TV, no iPad, no going outside. We literally put our phones in the kitchen cabinet because they are obviously a huge distraction. Being the teacher that I am, I wrote down a list of phrases that the book recommends and taped them on our fridge.
3. Drink, Drink, Drink – Push lots and lots of liquids. We bought juice boxes, chocolate milk, things Harrison usually never has. The funny thing is he really only wanted to drink sparkling water! But we encouraged him to drink A LOT so he had to go A LOT. He peed 14 times the first day. I kept a log of everything, it helps to predict when they will have to go next.
4. Always Be Pottying – As soon as he starts peeing, you run him into the bathroom and sit him on the potty and explain that pee goes in the potty not in our undies. It only took 3 pees on the floor and he was going in the potty! It was very easy to see he would cross his legs or grab himself when he had to go, so we would go.
5. Repeat – I would say it took a solid 2 days and day 3 things started to get easier. He had a lot of practice so he got the hang of it pretty quickly. On day 3, we went outside, allowed a little bit of TV time in the morning and we definitely let up on the liquids so he wasn’t going as often.

Source: Potty Training in Three Days by Brandi Brucks

We Had a Fun Three Days!

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Naps & Nighttime

Harrison was staying mostly dry during his naps before we started so I took that as a good indicator that he was ready for potty training. We now put a pull up on him during nap and night time but we call them his ‘sleeping undies’ and you put the regular undies on top of the pull up. The book recommends cutting off any liquids 2 hours prior to bedtime. Also, staying dry at night comes with time and takes some kids years. To be honest, I have a hard time telling if he peed in the pull up, they are different than regular diapers – but he seems to be dry most nights.

After The Three Days

Here we are two weeks later and we have only had a handful of accidents, I mean maybe 3. Once when he was outside on the deck standing at the door and started peeing (100% my fault because I wasn’t watching him). Then another time when he fell asleep in the car on the way home from the doctor. I tried very hard to get him to go before we left but he did not. Going #2 gets better every day. He knows he has to go and at first it would take about 10 times of sitting before he would actually go. Now he is pretty good about just doing it. Thank goodness!!

Of course this is way more work for mommy and daddy but it’s worth it and it worked! Now we are ready to start changing 10 diapers a day again when baby girl arrives! 🤣 Have you read this book or had success with others? Would love to hear what worked/didn’t work for you! Sending you lots of luck, you can do it!!