3 Is a Magic Number

I don't think School House Rock was singing about potty training when they said 3 is a magic number, but it applies in our case. A year ago or so I ran into a friend at ToysRUs. She also has three kids in the same configuration -- girl, boy, boy, but her kids are slightly older. Not sure why but we got on the subject of potty training boys. We both agreed they get how to pee in the potty right away but don't consistently and independently go until much later. She said she has found from her own experience and talking to others that for boys 3 years and 3 months is the turning point. They'll all of a sudden decide they don't want to wear a diaper any more and want to only wear underwear.

As our move to Palo Alto was fast approaching, Hansel and I were worried about Beck not being fully potty trained before starting at another school. He always came home from preschool with a dry pullup, but that was due to the fact that while he was at school for 6 hours the teachers would him to the bathroom 4 times. When he wasn't at school, we were not as diligent.

Part of the problem was that while his poops had never been hard, he had one poop that hurt. And so from that point on he did not want to poop in a toilet or potty. A few weeks before he was going to start at his new preschool, I was able to put him on the potty just as he was about to go poop. He went and it didn't hurt, and he got a treat. After a couple of more times of getting him on the potty at the right time, he was pretty much over his fear. Then just two weeks before school at 3 yrs 3.5 months, he started telling us when he needed to go to pee. And then we finally made the switch to underwear, and he has never looked back.