Potty Rundown

Today I am thankful for an accident-free day!

I'm going to go out on a limb here and call her daytime potty trained (knowing full well that I have many accidents in my future). She knew to go upon waking in the morning and from her nap. She even had her first public bathroom urination success when she asked me to go, and then actually went, today at Michael's.

I've already had a couple of people ask me what I'm doing, so for them and for any future rugrats I might have that I may want to remember just how things went.......

here's my potty training rundown:

~ I don't think it was anything I did or didn't do. She just had to figure it out on her own. I'm more convinced than ever that her problem was that she didn't know how to force herself to pee. Today, she had hardly anything to drink, and yet she peed 7 times before her nap! She usually drinks 3 0r 4 times that much and only goes once. I am positive that her ability to hold it so well will come in handy in the future.

~ Using incentives works great. If they're ready. I tried giving her a piece of candy if she tried to potty on several occassions, and it never worked for her. After a day, the newness of candy wore off and she screamed and cried when I mentioned the potty. No amount of candy would get her to sit on the thing.

~I made a potty chart for her and that seemed to help a lot. I took pictures of the prizes and put them at the end of each row. So she got a star each time she went. We would count how many stars she had and then count how many she needed and we talked a lot about the next prize. I had her get five stars before she got a prize because I didn't want her to have to wait too long for a success. When she started getting frustrated this past week when I asked her to try, I would offer her a piece of candy if she sat on the potty and that worked great since it was only once every day or two.

~The incentives are where you have to take your individual child and their likes/dislikes and communication skills into account. Clara needed the pictures. She wouldn't have understood what I was promising her if not for the pictures. Other kids might not need pics or even a chart. Someone today told me their grandson had a chart with 36 spots. When he filled the chart with stars, he got to go to Chuck E Cheese. He never had a single accident. That would have never worked with Clara. Other kids need only a piece of candy or a sticker.

~She wears panties during the day, with a vinyl cover most times. I don't think having the character panties really did much to help her learn, but she does like them. My favorite ones are the Gerber training pants that are a panty and vinyl cover in one, but the girl prints are hard to find in the stores around here. She's been wearing a pull up when we leave the house, but now I think I'll switch her to those panties since they really don't leak. I also bought a waterproof pad that goes in the carseat, so I think I'm about ready to live on the edge and venture out in panties.

~She's in a pull up while she sleeps right now. I was a bed wetter until I was in grade school, and since it's hereditary, I'm ready for her to be one too. I did put her potty in her room today before nap and told her to sit on it if she woke up and needed to go. She went on it before going to sleep and she sat on it right when she woke from her nap. I put it in there before bed tonight too, so I'm crossing my fingers that I don't have some terrible mess to clean up tomorrow morning. I'm hoping to phase out naptime pull ups before too long, but I won't begin to guess when I'll be getting rid of the nighttime ones. I'm just really not too keen on the idea of having to wash all those sheets and blankets and mattress covers and clothes and child when she has an accident.

~Something that may have contributed to her success, but I have no idea for sure, is the cool alert pull ups. I bought some last week because I've tried everything to get her to tell me before she peed. She wore them when we left the house or napped, but I was pretty lazy and didn't change her back into her panties upon returning home or waking, so she wore them more than usual. I don't know if they helped or not, but I can't completely discount them.

~Really, I just gave up on trying to force her to sit on the potty. I just put on the vinyl covers and called it good. I've done my share of laundry these past two weeks, but it sure beats the potty war that was going on. The covers don't do a great job of holding in leaks, but they're better than nothing. It's the taking them off that's the problem.

So there's my take on potty training. Bottom line- it's no fun. And Michelle, my heart goes out to you right now. I can't imagine taking on two of them!!