I used the 3 day potty training method with Gardner while I was at home from work over the holiday break. It was a success!! It's certainly not perfect, and he still has accidents, but he now understands that we use the bathroom on the potty. He's not perfect at telling us when he has to go, but fortunately for him we are really good at recognizing the potty signs and keeping an eye on his juice intake. 

Gardner understands going on the potty so much that he sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night and tries to use the potty. He's not yet 2 and a half, so he doesn't quite have the dexterity to pull his pants up and down and sometimes it's so sudden that he doesn't make it to the potty in time. The fact that he even tries to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night is awesome. 

In the event he gets up in the middle of the night he then comes to get us. Sometimes he has two legs in one side of his pajama pants, other times he comes to us before he has to go and climbs in bed with us and waits for us to jump up and take him, but more often he's soaked because he didn't make it. We of course tell him that it's okay and that accidents happen and he's not too upset. Then we try and put him back to bed. That's the challenge. 

Once Gardner is up he no longer wants to sleep in his own bed. We can lay with him for 30 minutes to try and get him back to sleep, but without fail he joins us again in our bed. We've talked with him about this repeatedly and asked him, "Where do we sleep Gardner?" 

He replies, "Sweep in mommy and daddy's beds!"

"Noooooooooooo!" we say. "We sleep in Gardner's bed."

"Sweep in Grand Dad's beds."

"Noooooooooo! We only sleep in Grand Dad's beds when we go to New Jersey," we tell him. "You need to sleep in Gardner's bed."

Then Gardner thinks and eventually says, "Sweep in mommy and daddy's beds!"

We just shake our heads. Needless to say, we love that Gardner is using the potty, but the unintended consequence is that he has become the third wheel in our bed. Now don't get us wrong, we love that he wants to cuddle with us, so we do enjoy when he lays with us. And let's be honest after being up with him twice already who wants to get out of bed at 4 a.m.? It's just easier to let him lay with us. And we love it, it's so sweet. We would also love if he slept in his own bed, but we're not hopeful that this will be a reality any time soon.  

Some day we will reclaim our bed, but I'm thinking that will be at least 5 year's down the road. After all we will blink and Caitiejane will be right behind him potty training too!