We did it. We potty trained our son in 3 days.

Let me provide a disclaimer: It wasn’t easy. It’s not perfect. There are still accidents. Number 2 hasn’t quite caught on like Number 1 has. But overall, it worked.

We followed Lora Jensen’s 3 Day Potty Training ebook. You can learn everything from the website and the ebook. A friend of ours recommended it to us.

The strategy takes lots and lots of underwear.
Here are the basics:

• Begin the day by taking off the last diaper and emphasizing how yucky it is.
• Show your child the new underwear. Tell him or her what a big boy/girl he/she is, and that it is time for big boy/girl underwear.
• For the next three days, monitor them constantly.
• Every few minutes, ask them if they are dry.
• Also tell them to tell you if they need to potty (but do not ask them if they need to).
• Stay positive in all things. Be only in encouraging mode. No reprimands.
• When they go, reward them, even if they tinkled a little in the undies.
• Remind them of how proud you are they are a big boy or girl for keeping their undies dry/clean.
• Keep doing this until bed time.
• As I said, have plenty of undies ready.
• After the three days, taper off the constant monitoring but you must follow up on steady monitoring, every 30 minutes at most. You do not simply stop asking them from now on.

Our son did not give us any fuss about it the process. We began on a Friday and ended on a Sunday. We slowly noticed change from the end of day 1 to the middle of day 3.

The first night we tried the option of waking our son up an hour after bed time and asking him if he needed to potty. Bad idea for us. He was miserable. But we did ask him an hour before he normally woke up, since that is a normal nursing time.

We didn’t travel at all until Sunday morning when we gathered with the Christian saints. There was a potty in his classroom. It worked out pretty well.

It’s been a week since we potty trained him. His #1 accident count is dwindling and his #2 accident count, while also dwindling, is dwindling at a slower rate. But we have already had successes with #2. So far we’re at a rate of less than 1.5 accidents a day. This weekend, there has been a decline in success and an increas in accidents, so we will need to intensify training.

Our son is proud of his new undies–his Mater undies, his Batman undies, his Buzz and Woody undies.

And he is such a big boy.