I'm a Big Boy Now

Over the past month or so, Noah left Baby Noah behind over and over again to become Big Boy Noah: he said goodbye to daytime diapers, to bottles, to his baby bed and almost said goodbye to strollers and to naps. These goodbyes were also hellos, hello to petites culottes, milk in sippy cups/cups, the trotinette (scooter) and "quiet time".

Noah's potty experience started a long time ago. Here he was at seven and a bit months sitting on his potty. He did not quite know what it was for but had a good time sitting on it anyways.

Since then, he has been interested in the potty on and off and we have let him dictate his progress. In March 2011, he got interested in actually peeing in the potty so we started a pee chart on his board: for every pee in the potty, we drew a star on his board and after five stars, he got a little car or toy. Pretty soon, he had 11 cars... 

At first he would just pee in the potty when given the opportunity in between diapers. I bought him some cute underwear in Europe and when we got home after our Europe trip, he got very excited about wearing the underwear (especially the ones with the little frogs) - clamoring for it the minute we left school. And the real potty learning began. 

In the beginning of his underwear days, I would bring him to the toilet every hour when we were at home. When that worked without problems, I increased it to every hour and a half. When that worked, I stopped bringing him and waited for him to ask and my seemingly potty trained little boy started having accidents again. 

Below are some potty learning milestones:

• End of July 2011, first diaperless evening at home in his new underwear, without accidents; but our little scientist had to check what would happen if he did pee so he, purposely it seemed, peed a little bit and then stared down at the little puddle on the tile floor;
• August 10, 2011, first diaperless excursion: it was a success! Noah went to the supermarket with dada;
• August 10, 2011, first caca in toilet. At the time I thought, wow, can this really be this easy, he is peeing and pooping in the toilet... but of course it wasn't. He has only done one other caca in the toilet  since...
• Week of Aug 8-12, Noah completely stopped wearing diapers in the afternoon when at home;
• August 13, 2011, first nap without a diaper. To our surprise he did not have any accidents that first time and has not had any during nap period since;
• September 7, 2011, first subway ride without a diaper!
• September 15, 2011, first day at school without a diaper. Since then he has not worn a diaper to school. At first it went well with relatively few accidents and any accidents were minor (a few drops in the culotte before making it to the bathroom) but after a while, it stopped being exciting and he started having accidents again. Stickers to the rescue! I told him that he would get a sticker for every morning at school without accidents; After five such stickers he would get a little present. Since then he has had no accidents and many stickers! 
• September 16, 2011, first major diaperless excursion (a trip to the zoo) without accidents. The excursion went very well in large part because we bought a "travel potty" which folds flat and which we took with us. Any time he needs to go, it is right there with us. Over time we use it less and less but it's a great comfort having it with us. 

Although one can clearly see progress in this chronology, it was not a smooth ride. It seemed like he would take two steps forward and then one step back and then two steps forward... and so on and so on.

As I write this on October 9th, Noah seems to have mastered the peeing part of potty training. We are, however, still working on the pooping (or have not really started working on the pooping). He seems uncomfortable doing his business in the potty/toilet and after a few days of him not going to the toilet at all, we decided to leave this battle for a later time. He now generally poops in the morning in his night diaper and then again in the evening before his shower. He asks for a diaper which we gladly provide (much better that than a miserable and constipated little Noah or caca all over the floor).

Along with becoming a big boy in a petite culotte - on September 15h (the day he first wore his petite culotte to school), Noah climbed out of his crib during nap time...  Here he is in his old crib.

And demonstrating how he was able to get out of it (it seemed like he had been doing it forever - he did it with such ease).

That night, we transformed his crib into a big boy bed. He was VERY excited and clambered in joyfully.

To our surprise (and so far), the transition to a big boy bed has been pretty easy. He goes down to sleep easily and does not leave his bed. In the morning he usually waits for his baby alarm to go off (for the rabbit to light up) to either call us or pitter patter over to our room. We will discuss naps later. 

Around the same time Noah started saying "pas biberon"  (or no bottle). On September 24th, I mentioned a bye bye biberon ceremony and he got very excited so we put all the biberons in a bag and threw them out in the garbage shoot (well I sneaked two out just in case). He has not asked for or had a bottle since. 

On September 26, Noah decided he wanted to ride his scooter to school instead of the poussette.... Here is Noah the first time he rode his scooter. 

He was still very uncertain then and has since become quite good at it. He has the advancing and steering part down and can brake when on flat ground but is still working on breaking with the break when on a hill. Since that first trip to school by scooter, he has ridden both by scooter and by poussette though he clearly prefers riding the trotinette.

To top off his big boyhood, Noah started phasing out his afternoon nap. At first he would nap but then have trouble falling alseep at night (he lies in bed singing and singing and singing and talking till he finally drifts off to sleep). Then he just could not fall asleep at nap time and on October  4 after seriously attempting to nap (he sang for 10 minutes, then after another few stories and more singing and talking and reading), he exclaimed (in French), mommy I can't fall asleep. Since then he has sometimes been able to nap and sometimes he just lies there for a while and then decides he can't fall asleep. On the days he naps he often finds it hard to fall asleep at night... I think the napping days may be numbered.

What a whirlwind month!