Nov 30 2007
Successfully toilet trained my 3.5 years old
I introduced the sticker game for rewarding, training and disciplining my 3.5 yo son in October.
Soon after I introduced that, I extended it for another purpose. I drew a page of 48 grids (see the left page below), and used it to reward Ian for not wetting his bed.
Before this, I still let Ian wear a diaper at night, as he still woke up with very heavy wet diaper. I tried a couple of times letting him went to bed without a diaper, I ended up had no sleep, as I had to wake him up every 2 hours to pee or I get a wet mattress!
When I started this new toilet training, about 31 days ago, I told him for every night without accident, he would be given a sticker. Whenever a sticker lands on a star, he gets to be rewarded with 1 session of GameBoy Advance. Apart from being rewarded this way, the GBA never gets into his hand.
As he long wanted to play the GBA, seeing his cousins and friends playing with it, this is a great motivator. It doesn’t cost me anything, as the GBA was given by my sister to me, to pass my time during my confinement last year.
To encourage him, I drew the first star on no. 1, second star on no. 3, third star on no. 6, 10, 15, 20, 25, etc. The reason the first few stars being so easily achived is to let him feels the thrill of getting a reward/GBA, and entice him to continue his ‘good behaviour’.
He was very excited with this. Motivated by this, he willingly went to the toilet when I woke him up, unlike before.
Yes, in the first stage, I had to wake him up frequently, to help him get his reward. You do not wan him to end up not getting anything after many attempts, which can really hamper his motivation to continue trying.
After a week of success, I faced with great challenge. He had accidents, twice in a row per night, for two nights. He wetted his bed just 1.5 hour after his last toilet trip. Upon investigation, I found out that he actually drank nearly 1.5L water/soup in between 7 to 8pm.
I changed the rule slightly, no liquid after 7pm. If he is thirsty, he can only take a few sips of water, not the entire bottle.
With that, I saw improvements. Slowly, I reduced my wake-up calls to twice per night - 12 midnight and 4am.
Then… the good news came! For 2 nights already last night and the night before, he woke up and went to the toilet by himself!
I hope he graduated from his training now! Sticker will go on until this page is filled.
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