Potty Training

Since Koyle is pretty much potty trained at this point I figured I should document how it went/is going. That sentence gives it away...Koyle is doing fantastic! I had been planning on potty training sometime after Christmas but was really hesitant to commit. I had created such a negative stigma towards potty training that whenever I thought of actually going through it again I got scared. I'm not sure what made me decide to finally do it other than the fact that it was just time. Koyle was ready and I knew it, I needed to get it done before it got too close to baby, and there's not time like the present. I had an open schedule and figured I might as well jump in.
Koyle had been talking about using the potty forever but for some reason was really against wearing underwear. But I knew how to solve that problem. It is a little tradition of mine (can it be a tradition if you've only done it once? well twice now) to take the kid and let him pick out special underwear to kick off potty training. So just Koyle and I went out one afternoon; Koyle didn't want to go and was whiny and fighting me the whole way until we actually got to the underwear aisle.
Then he got excited and picked out a package of Lightning McQueen undies. He was so excited to get started and wear his undies that it was hard to make him wait until Thursday to wear them. (I had to wait until after preschool on Thursday so I had maximum time until having to send him to the babysitter again on Tuesday). Thursday after his nap he woke up and came out running and excited to put his undies on. The only downside to this was that I prefer the naked method-I think it speeds up the process and really helps them figure out what is going on. But we have done some of both. Sometimes he wants to be naked, sometimes he wants just undies, and sometimes he wants pants.
I took a very laid back approach mostly because I didn't have the energy or emotional stamina to go hard core. So we didn't do the whole spend a day in the bathroom thing. We just tried to drink plenty of water, be really excited when he went potty, and was extra vigilant at spotting "the stance" so we could stop and run to the bathroom. I kind of wanted to see if he would just figure it out on his own and he really did! It took about 4 days for us to hit our breakthrough. It wasn't all accidents before that but it wasn't until day 4 that he would stop the pee once it started so we could run and go on the potty with minimal mess and he was telling me himself he needed to go instead of me noticing "the stance". And it has been all uphill from there. Every day got a little better and a little more consistent.
It has been about 3 weeks now and we don't have any full accidents, but quite often his undies get a little wet still. So lots of laundry. But some days he will make it the whole day in the same pair. It's pretty cute because he will call out, "I gotta go potty" and take off running to his room. The only time we run into trouble is if I don't follow fast enough. He still won't pull his pants or undies down by himself so that is our goal for the week. I always did it for him because I didn't want to waste time but I think he has control enough now to start working on that.
Poop has been a bit of an annoyance to say the least. He can feel it coming and will run into the potty and sit and wait and nothing happens. 5 minutes later we are back on the potty, wait-wait-wait, nothing happens. 5 minutes later back on the potty...you get the picture. We would do this for 1-2 hours sometimes before he would finally poop. Too many of his poop accidents were because mom got sick of running to the potty every 5 minutes and I would dilly dally my way to the bathroom and then he would be standing right in front of the toilet on his stool, and poop in his pants because I wasn't there to sit him on the potty. Just this week we had a poop breakthrough and he started going the first or second time he went in to try. This weekend he kind of went back to his old habits and I'm hoping that doesn't last because it gets super old super fast. *TMI moment: His poop messes are so much better to clean up than Matthew's were though. You can just plop it in the toilet for the most part where Matthew's were never solid and you actually had to wash the undies out every time. Shudder-bad memories-so glad I'm not doing that again.  I try not to complain because I know it could be so much worse.
None of my nightmares came true and I feel so blessed. Another prime example of how every kid is different and needs different things.
For incentives we did chocolate candies the first 5 days (nothing motivates Koyle better than chocoalte). He only got a candy if he actually peed or pooped since he didn't have problems with just sitting on the toilet. Then I made him a simple sticker chart. He got 5 stickers and then a star which earned a reward such as painting, a special activity of his choice, etc. Then after much coaxing from Matthew we pulled out the train chart. I was worried Koyle wouldn't respond to it because it is longer to a reward but it actually worked awesome and totally keeps him motivated. He has to get all the train cars on until he reaches the station (25 pieces I think) and then we do a fun reward. The first time we went to the train place and he just earned a trip to the dinosaur place which we will be doing in the morning. I like doing activities as a reward better than stuff partly because I am cheap and partly because I don't want more stuff, and partly because my kids love doing that kind of thing and it works for them.
I have a couple other friends who are potty training right now and it hasn't gone as smoothly for them. I am inclined to feel bad and don't want to make a big deal of Koyle potty training too easily; but then I remember that I have been on the other side and I know how they feel and that doesn't mean I can't celebrate having a good experience this time.
This post is becoming really long but there is one more thing I wanted to write about. I do feel lost regarding sleep training my children. Matthew started going dry during his naps right away when he potty trained. Koyle still wakes up wet a LOT. It wakes him up when he pees though which is a good thing I think. I'm hoping that just gets better with a little more time. Sometimes he asks to wear undies at night though and I haven't let him. I'm afraid I am going to perpetuate the problem and have another Matthew on my hands who can't stay dry at night. I am afraid he will have a lot of accidents at night, since he doesn't even stay dry during his nap. And Koyle doesn't go back to sleep easily once he wakes up at night and I haven't wanted to be up all night with him. But I don't want his body to learn that it is okay to pee at night because he's wearing the pull-up when maybe he would learn to hold it if I put him in undies and he was waking up when it happened. So I don't know. The whole night thing is a mystery to me with both boys and I never know what to do. I think I should probably try it a few times with Koyle and just see what happens. Anybody have any experience with this?