All Aboard the Potty Train!

A few weeks ago, Seth showed a strong interest in using the potty. So in an effort to keep his motivation going we decided to start some potty training. We brought up our little potty that we had been given at a baby shower. After Seth successfully used the potty a couple of times, we decided we needed to step it up a notch. I found a train themed potty chart and we decided to start giving stickers for any successes. We also decided it was time to buy some "big boy" underwear. We made a huge deal about it! Then as a big reward for filling up his potty chart, we thought Seth would enjoy doing something special. He had never been on the carousel in the mall so we took him one evening in hopes that he would think it was super fun. He loved it! So we knew it would be the perfect reward to remind him about each time he added a sticker to the chart. A couple of days into our potty training endeavor it was apparent that Seth wasn't quite ready to control his bladder no matter how often we tried. He was a pro at pooping in the potty though so we decided to keep the sticker chart going but also go back to diapers. He can take his diaper off if he needs to go, but it cuts down on all the messes from accidents until he becomes better at peeing in the potty.
One evening while browsing Pinterest, I saw a special toilet seat made specifically for potty training. Because we have a pretty small bathroom in our house, and our floor space is very limited, we jumped at the chance to have a built in potty seat on our toilet. We found it on Amazon and thought the $30 investment would be worth it especially since we can use it for several years (all the way through Silas' potty training days). Now that we have been using it for a couple of weeks, it was totally worth it!

Here's how it works:
The toilet seat looks like a typical seat closed.

When you raise the lid, the adult seat is the same as any other toilet seat.

But, then when you need the kid-sized seat you pull it down from the lid which is held up with a strong magnet. The especially nice thing about this is, once you close the lid, the kiddie seat clings back into the lid so the next time you lift it, the adult seat is back to being ready to use. That way you and guests don't have to mess with lifting a kiddie seat every time they need to use the bathroom.

We love it and so does Seth. He is so willing to use the new seat, he filled up his chart in no time.

So last night we went to celebrate his potty success. We rode the carousel two times. Once with daddy...

and once with mommy.

As soon as we got home, we started a new chart and Seth is already well on his way to filling up another one.