Three Little Monkeys: Go, Ben!

In an attempt to finish up this potty-training thing with Ben, Dan and I came up with an incentive chart for Ben to wear underwear. Right now, he's trained in every sense of the term(can and will hold it until he's on the potty, knows all the signs that he needs to 'go", even willingly goes on his own; without telling me first, when he's diaper-free). He just refuses to wear underwear. He prefers diapers; they are what's normal for him and he doesn't have to stop what he's doing to use the bathroom if he doesn't want to. Underwear feels foreign to him and he's never adjusted to change easily. We have TONS of fun, character undies he picked out himself. He's not interested in the novelty of wearing Lightning McQueen on his tush. This is more of a power-struggle between him and us that we have to tread very lightly over! He's so agitated by the thought of wearing them that he often throws a tantrum if we even suggest he put them on. It's.SO.Frustrating.

We're completely dreading the idea of three in diapers, so we're giving this one final shot before things get too hectic with Callie's impending arrival(experts say to start big projects like potty-training, moving to big-kid beds/rooms, weaning from bottles/pacifiers no closer than three months before or after adding a new sibling). Enter Ben's Potty and Underwear Chart! I designed it to have thirty spots, with incentives after ever five spots. There are three BIG incentives(buying a special toy called Coco-Nutty the Monkey, going to Chuck E. Cheese and the final prize being a special, ultra-hyped up trip to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, or Marine World as it will always be known as to me!). In between those three incentives, there are smaller incentives(get an ice-cream, get donuts for breakfast, and a special surprise treat that I couldn't think up while making the chart;p).

We're so happy to announce that yesterday, Ben earned his first incentive! He wore underwear fives times in a row(denoted by the SpongeBob stickers. The misc. bubbles, and shells are stickers for going potty) and earned a super-fun trip to Cold Stone with mommy, daddy and Emily today. For the first two incentives, he just has to willingly put them on long enough to put his SpongeBob sticker on the board. After that, we'll work on wearing them for longer intervals to earn the next two incentives. We're keeping our fingers crossed that he will enjoy this low-pressure attempt to get him wearing big-boy undies sometime in the near future! Wish us luck!

The Chart to End all Charts. DON'T laugh at it! I just threw it together. It had printed pictures of the big incentives, but they ripped them off pretty much the first day. The resulting drawings were done by Ben...yeah. By Ben;)