Potty Training 101

Warning: this posts contains lots of potty talk (duh) and possibly TMI. And it is long and boring. 

I mentioned a few months ago that we were going to do potty training boot camp at our house. So the first weekend in June was the date we set. I read a little bit about the 3 day training method from the Potty Training Queen, but it was impossible for us to find 3 consecutive days when we were going to be home, and since C is close to turning 3, I thought we could get away with just a day or two at home. There were also some other things about that method that I thought were a little hard core, but there were also some helpful tips. I figured we could just kind of see what worked for C and go from there. One thing the Potty Queen said not to do was force her to sit on the potty every 20 minutes. Her reasoning was that the child needs to learn to respond to his or her own body cues and that it could be seen as punishment. C had gotten to where she was refusing to sit on the potty if we asked, so that was a battle we chose not to fight, and that worked out well for us. She also said to throw away all diapers and pull-ups, which we did not do.

So we started on that Sunday. We put her in undies {I hate the word panties for some reason. Unfortunately C learned that at school and calls them that anyway.} and told her to tell us when she needed to use the potty. We also asked her about a million times every minute if she needed to go, and constantly praised her for keeping her undies dry. We had two accidents at first, but then on the third time, she made it to the potty before she finished, so that was progress. Then she did great the rest of the day with no accidents! That night we had some of her friends over to play, and she was having so much fun she didn't want to stop playing to sit on the potty. But to my surprise, she stayed dry! She even stayed dry during the night and woke me up once to take her to the potty!

That Monday she started off the day with a couple of accidents again, but then did well the rest of the day. We even ventured out to run an errand, and she was in undies. I stopped at my sister's house on the way home to give her a chance to use the bathroom, but she wouldn't go over there. But she still stayed dry.

We sent her to school that week in undies, but she had several accidents, so they asked us to send her in a pull-up with underwear on top. That's the way they like to train them, so we did that for two weeks and she kept them dry the majority of the time.

She has done GREAT with #1. Of course now that I'm writing this post, she had an accident yesterday morning before school. I can't even remember the last time she had an accident with #1. She hates to sit on the potty when she wakes up, but she usually is good about going 10-15 min later. So I'm hoping that was an isolated event.

I was a little worried at first about her going #2. She has some GI issues that the pediatrician said would probably make her harder to potty train. TMI- but she normally goes at least 3 times a day, so on day 4 of potty training when we had still seen no action in that department, I started to get a little worried. But at the end of that first week, her teacher called me from school to say she had a BM in the potty! For those of you who have never done the potty training thing- let me just tell you, that is a BIG deal because it seems like most kids have issues with that. Of course, she still goes #2 in her pull-up or undies a fair amount, but overall she has done pretty well with it.

Very quickly she started recognizing that she needed to go and would run quickly to the bathroom without us asking her {she still screams "I NEED TO TEETEE!" while running in there}. She now demands "pribacy" most of the time and wants no help from us.

For rewards, the 1 M&M for teetee and 2 M&M's for poop that we had tried off and on over the last year weren't going to cut it for this boot camp weekend. So we took advice from a friend and used cheap dollar store toys as rewards. It worked out that I had some left over from her Go Fishin' booth from her bday party last year. We actually would give her a choice between a toy or 5 jelly beans or M&M's. She picked toys for the first day, and then after that, those got old and she started wanting candy. She eventually quit asking for treats after the first week or so, but we still reward with candy for #2 if she asks.

Overall I have been very pleased with how well she's done. {But hell, she's nearly three, so it's about time!} We've even had several road trips and she's kept her pull-up dry every time {I wasn't brave enough to just leave her in undies}. She typically asks to stop about 2 hours into the drive. I am such a germaphobe and HATE public restrooms, but I bought these little potty covers at Babies R Us and they make me feel much better about those gross places. She also still sleeps in a pull-up. For some reason, she seems to have reverted some there and wakes up with them wet about half of the time, but I am not worried about that quite yet.

I'm proud of our big girl!