Joanna they are precious! Many congratulations on your beautiful family. I wish you all the happiness in the world.

Gosh, your family is so beautiful!

All I can tell you about potty training is this: My friend Kay and I had babies the same age. We were both pregnant with baby #2 when we decided to potty train our two-year-olds. Kay had a boy and worked hard at this project. I, on the other hand, gave up on it completely after realizing how uncomfortable it was to keep bending over in late pregnancy.

So she put forth a lot of effort, while I did nothing. And both two-year-olds ended up trained at the same time. One day my daughter asked me to change her diaper. I told her if she was old enough to know when her diaper needed changing, she was old enough to use the toilet. That was the turning point, and it took no effort at all. :-)

Seriously, my advice is not to make a big deal of it. If you're finding it's a struggle, back off for now.

You'll probably get lots of other opinions here. :-)

Just completely finished this year - Where did you find Thomas underpants? Aiden loves him! I used Cheerios for him to aim at in the toilet and we also used stickers for when he went - I made Thomas stickers ( printed Thomas printed on address labels with a chart I made with his name on it.) My DD insisted on using a wee seat to go on top of the big toilet - we FINALLY got him off that! My other grandson was literally stuck on one of those free standing puppies and he is STILL using that! My granddaughter was potty trained completely at a year and a half and doesn't wear a pull up to bed any more... Girls are easier! Yes, I had three grands born within 6 months of each other...

What a precious family!

Good morning bearcat!

Beautiful family! I have no help on the potty training
Sorry! I didn't even really potty train my son!
He and the day care did it! LOL he didn't want to
be in the baby room anymore! It was unbelievable! lol

plus, it was 20 years ago, so it's not like I can
remember anyway! LOL

A woman in suburban Chicago runs a 'Booty Camp'(give her 5 hours and she will have them trained) and was featured on the Today Show in 2008. I went to their website at that time and copied the info because I had 2 grandaughers that needed to be trained. Her are some pointers from her. Never ask if the have to go because then you are the one in charge of their body. Tell them if you have to go in the potty, go in the potty. She tells them if they go pee or poop in their pants they are goingt ohave to clean it up. She loads the kids up with salty snacks and sugary drinks. The salty snacks make the kids thirsty, so they drink more. It also draws water into the bowel and that softens the stool. The sugary drinks never quench their thirst, so they end up drinking more, and that gives them the oppurtunity to go to the bathroom in a short period of time. Hope these tips help.

Maybe he is not ready to be trained. Once they are ready, they are easy to train. It may not be at the time you wanted but it will happen. Our son was almost 3 1/2 when he was completely trained. Daughter was completely trained at 23 months. Give yourself and him a break and start again later.

No advice, but love your pictures.

DGS learned this faster by imitating his father. He still wasn't paying attention to his body until wanting to get out of the 'Baby' class in preschool provided a motivation. He was three.

Our DS was very slow to learn this. I've wonderded if that had something to do with his high *pain* tolerance -- which I didn't discover until later. Perhaps the connections between nerves and brain aren't as strong. (DS drove from Springfield to Chicago with appendicitis, dismissing it as indigestion. It nearly ruptured by the time I got him into the hospital. He's walked on a broken ankle before recognizing there was a problem.)

My grandmother claimed that she potty trained me to pee in a teacup before I was a year old. Uh-huh, sure. We know who was 'trained'.

I took courage from the knowledge that our DS would not be attending high school in a diaper. LOL It'll 'take' eventually!

Your family is beautiful!

No advice for the potty-training... but thanks for the updates on your family.

Thank you all for your kind words and advice!

Today has gone REALLY well with potty training. This kid is definitely ready. He has been peeing on the potty every night before bath for a month, so it's really time to drop the diapers.

He had only one pee accident today and as soon as he went in his undies, he told me he wanted to pee on the potty, then went on the adult potty (!!) with the little insert seat and finished.

We got the Thomas underpants at Target, Bonnie :) And Abby, I borrowed the Potty Boot Camp book from a friend and it's the only one I read and am following it. :)

Thanks again...these kiddos grow up so incredibly fast. I return to work on October 4th. I just can't believe Campbell is almost 2 months old!

She loads the kids up with salty snacks and sugary drinks. The salty snacks make the kids thirsty, so they drink more. It also draws water into the bowel and that softens the stool. The sugary drinks never quench their thirst, so they end up drinking more, and that gives them the oppurtunity to go to the bathroom in a short period of time.

What a thing for that woman to do. I find it appalling.

Thanks for the info on the aThomas pants... On my way now!

My first daughter wasn't potty trained till she was nearly 3. I bought her a potty at Toys R Us, set in in our main bathroom and bought her a pair of "fancy pants", underwear with ruffles. Started on a Saturday morning (she was in Day Care Monday to Friday). and she had wet herself within an hour. I changed her, made no fuss, and put another set of fancy pants on her. Never had an accident after that. I don't remember how I trained my second daughter, but she turned out to be a bed wetter until she was about 6. The pediatrician told me that's perfectly normal. OTOH, my MIL told me she potty trained her daughter when she was only 9 months old. Sounds like child abuse to me!

Yikes...well I'm not doing the sugary snacks and drinks and salt thing. I'm just doing the every 30 minutes on the potty thing. Brody drinks only water and eats healthy. No changes to that just because we are potty training.

And today is day 5 of potty training and it's going great :)