How we potty trained Chase and got Brice to sleep through the night

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This post should be empty, but I couldn't just leave you hanging with a title like that. The truth is, both of these developments just sort of happened. But because I know I will look back in a few years and wonder how we did it, I wanted to post something. BTW, there's some TMI in here. What do you expect from a post with potty in the title?

Potty-training Chase
The single biggest factor in this was preschool. Every day they take the kids to the bathroom at the same time to use the potty or to have their diaper changed. As you can imagine, they make a big deal of going on the potty. So pretty early in the year Chase was happy to go pee-pee on the potty. But we didn't make a big deal out of it- we were happy when he did it but didn't pressure him too much.

At our conference in December, his teacher mentioned they one of his classmates (who Chase totally looks up to) had just decided one day to wear big boy underpants and that was it. I said "I can't imagine that ever happening with Chase," but lo and behold, a few weeks later, it did. Around the time of Brice's baptism, Chase decided to wear his super-cool big boy underpants (adorned with Diego, Cars, and Spiderman to encourage him) all the time. He would yell, "I'm pee-pee'in!" when he had to go and progressively got better at making it to the bathroom before going (although only recently stopped saying "I'm pee-pee'in" when he has to go). Of course there were a few accidents, and his aim isn't always the best, but overall he's doing a great job. Chase still wears a pull-up to bed for nap and at night, but he doesn't need it.

#2 took a little longer-- for a month or so he was only going only every 3-5 days and it was not comfortable. But a sticker chart (for pooping and sleeping until 6:30) with increasing incentives convinced him to start going more often. Now he's happy to go every day, often as soon as we sit down to a meal.

Brice's sleeping
Here are the things that worked for us:
1. Brice's binkie and lovey
2. A nanny who puts him down for naps awake so he learned to fall asleep on his own

I can't really add much to either of these, only to say thank you, Carol!