Big Boy Britches!!!

So my sweet friend @PaigeReynolds put a little fire under my rear to get Brayden potty trained.  She recommended a book that used the "3 day approach" and had success with her daughter who is a couple of months younger than B.  Brian and I decided to dedicate a whole weekend to potty training which meant not leaving the house or even take Brayden outside to play...The gist of the approach we used was constant reminders to keep his big boy underwear dry, LOTS of positive encouragement, and of course bribery with TREATS!!!  Brayden doesn't get candy often so we pulled out the big guns for potty training and gave him M&M's!  Then when we were "really proud" of what he did we gave him frosted cookies!  Since it has been over a week now we have moved on to mini marshmallows and are trying to phase out the treats :)  Just a couple of days ago I came into the bathroom and Brayden had pulled his stool over to the sink, opened up the marshmallows and was jut eating them by the handful!  When I came in he looked at me with a huge grin and said "eating, eating!"

Day 1 was Friday afternoon, we just did half a day and by dinnertime I have to admit I felt defeated!  We were pumping Brayden full of liquids so he would have plenty of opportunities to use the toilet and it totally backfired on us when we saw the massive puddle under his chair at dinner!!!

Can you see it down there?!!! And our cleaning lady had just been here, darn!!!

The book I read said to have 20-30 pairs of underwear ready during potty training.  My first thought was this was ridiculous and the 13 pairs we already had should be just fine!  Well on that first day when we were down to our last couple of pairs of his adorable "big boy britches" I totally understood and started a load of laundry!
Day 2 Brayden really started to catch on and by Sunday our boy was potty trained!  He tells us "Brayden needs to go potty" and sometimes "Brayden needs to go potty real bad!".  Every time he sits down and goes he says "yay!" and quickly followed by "Brayden get marshmallows!!!" He has done well staying dry for his 3 hour nap in the afternoon, we just try to taper off his liquids for an hour or two before he eats and make sure he goes potty right before his nap.  Usually he says he has to go about 3 times before we are actually able to leave the room so he can take his nap.  We have not yet tried underwear for sleeping at night and are still putting a diaper on him before he goes to bed.  My guess is we will try that in a couple of months.

Brayden made potty training look so easy much like he does with any new thing we try with him.  I just don't think I give him enough credit, he is such a smart boy and loves to please!  We are so excited to have half the diapers to change and buy around here!

And now some pics of my buddy in his big boy britches!!!  Nothing cuter!!!

Love this hiney!!!

Look at that tan line!

YAY Brayden!!!  We are so proud of our sweet boy!!!