We continued on in our quest to potty train yesterday. For the full back story, be sure to check out Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3. And if you’re looking forward to returning to my regularly scheduled programming, this here report from the bloody war front of Butt Camp is the last of this crazy installment. This experiment is driving me insane. Send gin. And Hugh Jackman. I need to escape…

Day 4, Tuesday, July 27, 2010:

Sweetness was out cold when I left for work at 6:45 a.m. My regular calls to the nanny basically revealed that she either refused to go to the bathroom all morning, or was finding a way to be sneaky about where she was going. On Tuesdays a little boy her age who is completely potty trained comes over. She watched him do his magic, and she sat on the potty a lot, but there was no action.

When I got home, the nanny informed me that shortly after my last call Sweetness sat on the potty for 15 minutes outside, promptly got up, squatted in the grass to pee, then returned to the potty.

She was wondering around kind of funny and grabbing herself shortly after I got home, but despite several suggestion she have a seat on the potty, she sat for only a few seconds and then started in with lots of ‘no.’ I went into the bedroom to change and she followed. She was still dancing around holding herself a lot so I grabbed the potty and brought it into our master bath. She sat on it for a minute then stood up and picked it up. I was in the middle of tying my shoes when she started demanding I carry the potty. I told her I was busy and to please just put it down. In her typical manner of late, she threw it to the ground. And it hit her foot. Which made her scream. And then she let loose. She ran around the bathroom peeing all over the place. I finally caught her and went to put her on the potty and she fought me, peeing all the way, all over herself, the potty, the floor, the bathmats, everything.

That was it for me. I was so completely pissed off at this point I had to leave the room or I’d start shaming her. I left to get rags and a mop. When I returned she was on the potty where I’d put her and had peed a little more in there. No wonder she was dancing around.

I stripped her down, took her into the tub, sprayed her off from waist down, then slapped a diaper on her. I gave up. She just wasn’t really getting it. I’d wasted enough nice days following her around and encouraging her to sit on the potty only to have her avoid the damn thing today and pee all over the yard and bathroom. She asked me where her potty was and I told her I put it away because she didn’t want to use it. She was back in diapers now. Pee away.

After a little time to cool off, which I used to get Mr. Man up from his nap, changed and in his high chair with finger food, I went to check on her. She asked if she could go out and play in the pool. I put her swim shirt on and took off the diaper. She went outside and I ended up following with the potty. I left it there with her and went in to feed Mr. Man.

About 15 minutes later she came walking up the stairs to the deck carrying the basin of the potty. “Look Mommy, poop!”

Well I’ll be. We did the potty dance, she got hugs, we flushed, washed hands and had a candy.

When Sweetness’s buddy’s mom came by to pick him up she told me the 3-day program she followed required the child to wear underwear so they’d feel the wetness right away. That’s what worked for her son. At this point, and in my current state of mind, I’ll give anything a try.

So with Sweetness now out of pee and poo, I slapped the padded undies I had for her on her butt and we all went off to Target to pick out big girl panties and pull ups (the later for daycare). When we got to the toddler undies, she chose a cool set of froggy undies. She loves frogs, so she was pretty psyched. Then we grabbed some pull ups and were out of there. She did really well. Her first outing without diapers, and no incidents.

When we got home she started acting out. She’s been doing this a lot lately, and maybe it’s a side effect of all the focused potty training. She walked right up to her brother and slapped him in the face. We’ve been working on her hitting her brother and she knows the rules. If she hits, kicks, slaps or otherwise hurts him, she has to have a positive time out. We take her out of the situation and set her down in her room. Sometimes I’ll hand her a book and suggest she enjoy a little time away from baby brother. Lately she just starts screaming about this as she stands in her room, getting herself all upset rather than cooling off. I realize she’s probably acting this way about being separated from her brother because she views it as punishment, but I’ve yet to find a better way to deal with it when I’m in the middle of something and can’t give her all my attention.

After slapping her brother three different times I took her off to her room and sat her down with a book. She started crying. I explained we are nice to each other and there is no hitting. Perhaps she can read a book where baby brother isn’t so he can’t bother her. She screamed louder. I brought in the potty just in case. She slammed the door on me and not more than 30 seconds later the screaming changed. I went in to check and sure enough, she was standing there next to the potty in a huge puddle of pee. I don’t think I can count this accident as being a lack of grasping potty training because she was upset. Come to think of it, I probably can’t count the bathroom spraying either since she was evidently traumatized by throwing the potty onto her own foot.

However, the day ended without her using the potty again. She danced around a lot grabbing herself before bed, but did nothing about it. She wore her new big girl underwear, told us several times that she needed to use the potty (and went over, pulled down her undies and sat on it), but no dice.

I know I should see that the actual accidents I had to clean up were limited to two, and they were both when she was distressed. And the pooping thing is a big step. Also, she didn’t soil her new undies. I know this is all progress. It’s just that I’m impatient and really just want to see some serious progress, like her using the potty regularly, without me having to ask all the time. It will come in time. And as my nanny share buddy said as she was leaving, Sweetness will be out of diapers by the time she starts dating. Or better yet, maybe she’ll still be in them and then she’ll avoid dating. There’s a positive side to everything, see?

In the meantime, Mr. Man decided he needed to pull a new parlor trick so as not to be forgotten during this time of intense focus on big sister. Today he started walking with the walker for the first time:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_IEeb4Wvd0[/youtube]

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Related posts:

1. Potty Training in Three Days or Less – Day 3
2. Potty Training in Three Days or Less – Day 1
3. Potty Training in Three Days or Less – Day 2

Welcome to Day 3 of my little experiment to see if I can finally save $100 a month in diapers. After two years and 10 months of diapers I decided to try a little experiment to see if my little Sweetness, who was showing all the signs of readiness for potty training, would take the leap. If you’re just joining the fun, I recently heard of a program where you could potty train in three days or less. While I seriously doubted the validity of that, I figured three days would at least get us on the right track. If you’re just now joining us, you can catch up on the action at Day 1 and Day 2. And thanks to my buddy at My Momma Drama, I’m now referring to this as Butt Camp (my own take on Boot Camp).

Day 3, July 26, 2010:

Right around 2:15 a.m. Sweetness woke and started crying. I wrote about this in yesterday’s post. My only guess is her little brain was working overtime on the whole potty training issue and it woke her up. She was back asleep by 3 a.m. or so.

Despite her early morning wake up call, she was up at 6:40 a.m., so I got her up and dressed her in a sundress. As I was taking off her diaper, which was still dry as I’d changed it at 2:15 a.m., she told me, “no diapers.” Ahhh, progress. This was a step up from me having to explain why I wasn’t putting one on her yesterday morning. “That’s right, no diapers anymore during the day so as soon as we get up, we have to sit on the potty.” This time, she said “no,” but then went into the living room and sat on the potty. That’s where I left her, reading a book, when I went to work.

I left a long list of things to do and look out for with the nanny, and called her every hour or so to see how things were going. By my 10 a.m. call, the nanny hadn’t seen any sign of her going to the bathroom, even though she’d sat on the potty several times. However, they had gone outside, where it was already 70+ degrees, and she had spent some time in the kiddie pool.

We concluded she’d probably gone in there, so the nanny dumped the water and refilled it.

I got home just before 1 p.m. to the kids having lunch. The nanny informed me that Sweetness did pee on the hall floor (hitting the hardwood) not long after I called, but nothing since then, and nothing in the potty. My heart sank. Maybe she just wasn’t going to get this after all.

After they finished lunch I put Sweetness on the potty and we read a book. When she stood up, there was just a little bit in the potty. “Look, you started to go, honey. Go on and finish.” She had a pained look on her face and wanted to get up and leave. I’m beginning to recognize this behavior, start to pee on the potty, stop and try to go off and hold it as long as possible until it can’t be held any longer. I suggested we go out and play.

We went out together, with the potty. Not long after we got outside she pulled up her dress and sat down on the potty. That pained look was on her face again.

I sat down next to her, held her hand and told her, “that’s ok, honey. That’s what it feels like when you have to pee. Go ahead and relax. That’s the way. You can do it.”

She was looking at me with this total look of worry and as it started to go away I heard her pee with the force of a fire hose. She was pushing and holding back at the same time, trying to figure out which was right. As she went, I smiled and talked her through it, “that’s it honey! You’re peeing. That’s how you do it! You did it!”

She suddenly got a very proud look on her face and hugged me. Then she looked down, “that’s pee! I did it!”

I felt so excited that I could talk her through it, maybe help her make the connection lovingly. Then she floored me.

“Candy?”

“Oh hell,” I thought. I’d just decided I wasn’t going to do the reward thing. She wasn’t interested in it yesterday. But she was sure in the loop today.

So we took the potty in, dumped it out in the toilet, washed hands and she got a candy.

I figured at that point I had enough time to sneak in a shower. (I skipped the morning shower in favor of a few more minutes of snooze, having been woken in the middle of the night.) The kids joined me in the bathroom, alternatively screaming and crying (Mr. Man for God knows what reason and Sweetness because Mr. Man was crying and she hates that). After the world’s fastest and most stressful shower, and as I was getting dressed again, Sweetness ran out of the room then returned with an “uh, oh.” She had a few drips down her leg.

“Where’s the pee?” I asked and she showed me a spot on the hardwood (thank you Jesus, she missed the carpet) that was only a few drops. Then she sat on her potty. After a few minutes she announced “there’s the pee” and showed me her potty. It was just a little bit. We carried the potty out to the living room (it had been in the bathroom with the kids while I was in the shower) and she sat down. She let out a few more drops and got up. I went into the kitchen to begin rinsing the lunch dishes. Sweetness came in and stood by me for a minute, then said those magical words:

“I have to go potty!” as she reached between her legs.

YES! I turned off the water as I told her to go to the potty. I followed her over. She sat down and got that pained look. I again sat on the floor next to her, held her hand and talked her through it. She squirmed and said “no,” then the dam broke and she filled that potty in four seconds. I laid on the encouragement, “you did it, that’s the way, you went pee in your potty!”

She just smiled and said, “yay, one piece of candy.” Sigh.

With that release we had a couple of hours of play time and as I made dinner, Hubby encouraged her to sit down on the potty and talk to him before dinner. After a couple of her few drops at a time maneuvers, he sat her back down and handed her her digital camera so she could scroll through her photos. As she did that, the dam broke again.

During dinner she announced she had to go, sat on the potty, but didn’t do anything. We expect she had to poo, but wasn’t emotionally ready for that leap yet.

The Day 3 Potty Count: 3 full potties, 6 very little amounts, and twice she said she had to go potty.

Final verdict: This three days to be fully potty trained is a bunch of hooey in our house. Maybe it works for kids who were already using the potty from time to time when prodded, but it’s not a sure thing for kids who weren’t. Regardless, she’s clearly starting to get the hang of it. She only had one full accident and a few drips of accidents the third day were she was peeing all over the place the first day. I’d say this method has it’s merits. Just don’t hang your hat on the 3-day thing. I recommend setting aside several more than three days.

We decided to do this at a time where we could pull a 5-day stretch just to be safe. Given I only work from 7 am to 12:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, and have Wednesday off, we’re pushing through five days.

The program does call for your child to be diaper and underwear free during the day for three months. Yes, three months, before you introduce underwear. I’m not sure we’ll get that far. In fact, the daycare she attends on Thursday and Friday demands Pull-Ups for 30 days AFTER she’s stopped having accidents before she can wear underwear. I’m a little concerned about regression with the Pull-Ups, but there’s not much I can do in that area.

So I’ll continue the next two days and will report back. This has been long and tiring, and not a little frustrating, but it’s working. Slowly, but surely, it’s working.

Thank you for subscribing to my RSS feed at Heligirl: Positive Discipline Mommy! I would love to hear your comments and feedback on Potty Training in Three Days or Less – Day 3. If you have a blog yourself, I'd love to check it out and possibly even link to it here!
Thanks for reading! Heligirl: Positive Discipline Mommy

Related posts:

1. Potty Training – Day 4 of 3
2. Potty Training in Three Days or Less – Day 2
3. Potty Training in Three Days or Less – Day 1

It’s Day 2 of my Potty Training in Three Days or Less challenge. To catch up on the background of why on Earth I’d do this and read all about the first day, please click here. Go ahead, I”ll wait…

Back? Ok. Just to prepare you, I have to say, after an encouraging end to Day 1, Day 2 was a frustrating as all get out.

Day 2, Sunday, July 25, 2010:

Sweetness started out with a very full and poopy diaper. As I was changing her into her sundress, we talked about the potty. I reminded her that we don’t wear diapers during the day anymore and because of that, we need to sit on the potty as soon as we get up in the morning. That went over like a wet fart in church. I tried the choices approach – do you want the little potty or the toilet? The answer? “No!”

I'm considering making an investment. Do you think these will be enough rags or should I double my order?

To her credit, she did sit on her little potty a lot all morning. She had breakfast, hung out in the bathroom with me as I took a shower (her potty in the room too), and played a long time (stopping to sit on the potty when asked) before the first “opportunity” came. It had been 90 minutes since I got her up and I was getting nervous so I had her sit on it while I read like 4,325 books. Nothing. She ran around the house and every time she stopped I asked her to sit and she did. Then she got up and walked to the front screen door (the front door was open so air would circulate through the house and she likes to stand at the screen door and look out). She was there maybe two seconds, looking out at the yard before she peed on the threshold. Arggg!

She went back to the potty while we cleaned that up and when she got up there was a very, very tiny poo. You’re supposed to acknowledge even the tiny things so we did our potty dance, she got to dump and flush, then got her candy. I kept trying to get her to sit just in case, but she’d had enough. She went over to stand next to Hubby who was at the couch. Not two minutes later she announced, “Look, dog poop” and pointed to a pile at Hubby’s feet.

It wasn’t dog poop.

After another round of sitting on the potty and the poo clean up, I glanced at the clock – 9 a.m. It was going to be a long day.

I lathered her up with suntan lotion and took her outside to play. She played for an hour, going on and off the potty. Then finally, a few drops in the potty. Another potty dance and such. Then we went in and all hell broke loose.

First, after sitting on the potty for 15 minutes, she got up and peed a full bladder load in the corner. Not 30 minutes later, after another potty sitting and reading spell, she got up to wash her hands and peed all over the bathroom floor. I may be grasping for straws here, but the good news is she’s only actually hit carpet once so far since Saturday morning.

As a side note, I’ve noticed rewards don’t seem to be making any difference at all at this point. I’ve decided to bag them. Hubby wants to keep trying, but if she doesn’t ask for the candy after using the potty, I don’t offer it. I’ve noticed she’s far more excited about the prospect of taking the potty to the toilet, dumping it out and flushing by herself. In a way, that makes me feel so good. Being able to do something herself makes her feel much better than any reward, which is how it should be. So I’m following her lead on that.

I am keeping up with the encouraging words (even though I’m feeling mighty discouraged) and when she has accidents, making sure I’m saying, “Oh honey, you missed the potty. Don’t worry. I have faith you’ll get the hang of this in time and remember to go to the potty first. We’ll just keep trying.” The last thing I want to do is give her a complex. This much seems to be working because she isn’t fighting us when we tell her it’s time to sit on the potty.

The real trick in all of this is constant vigilance. It is hard to watch both kids at the same time. I try to keep them both in the same room together. If Sweetness wonders off to a different room to play, I’ll go with her and bring the potty. Mr. Man usually follows. She mainly stays in the living room or out back, so that’s not too big of a problem.

Mr. Man is doing two naps a day so we’ve been able to switch off keeping a close eye on Sweetness. It’s going to get harder during the week while Hubby is at work. When Mr. Man woke from his first nap yesterday, Hubby took him and ran errands. It’s nice to have only one around, but I can’t let her out of my sight, which is tiring, to say the least. If I pick up a book, try to check mail, anything, she’ll invariably pee somewhere. I realize we’re in the stage now where she just needs to experience and recognize the sensation of having to go to the bathroom. I must remain vigilant.

After another couple of accidents I was tired, frustrated and not a little discouraged. I worked really hard not to show it. I needed a break in the worst way. Then Sweetness came to my rescue, “Watch the car movie?” As a general rule, I’m very anti-TV for the kids. They can have 15 minutes of cartoons a day, if any. But I saw an opportunity.

I put Cars in the DVD player and made a deal with Sweetness. She can watch as long as she stays on the potty. She was tired from all her time outside so she sat quietly and watched her whole movie (a record for how long she’s sat in front of the TV). At the end we had a full potty! It was the ONLY full potty of the day. Sadly, I’m pretty certain her using it was not a conscious decision. Usually she announces she’s peed. This time she just got up after the movie walked away. I had to point out the pee. She seemed surprised. I don’t think I can count that as a victory. Sigh.

In an attempt not to feel completely discouraged, I reviewed what was different about Day 2. In truth, there was one big difference. While there were twice as many accidents, some of them were very small, followed by a bigger one a little later. She’s learning to sense it coming and is stopping mid-stream, if you will. That’s a big step. And sometimes there was only very little in the potty (same principle), she just hadn’t made the connection it was OK to let ‘er rip when on the potty (or she was just so focused on trying to stop it).

I think I might be right about her making these connections because she woke in the middle of the night last night and started crying. When I got to her room, her light was on, books were in her bed and she was standing by the door. We snuggled for a bit before she went back to sleep. I’m wondering if her little brain was working so hard on this it woke her up. And if so, did she make some progress internally? We’d soon find out, because the beginning of Day 3 was only four hours away…

Check out Day 3.

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Related posts:

1. Potty Training in Three Days or Less – Day 3
2. Potty Training in Three Days or Less – Day 1
3. Potty Training – Day 4 of 3

Sweetness is two months shy of her third birthday and the potty training issue has been driving us insane. For the past eight months she’s shown complete interest in sitting on the potty that lead to her using it once, then none, then interest again including the “big girl potty,” then complete lack of interest again. We’ve been following her lead, trying not to push her, but at the same time trying to gently keep the subject current incase she decides to make the leap.

Then recently I learned that three of her male buddies her age and younger were now either only wearing diapers at night or were completely potty trained. Boys are generally supposed to take longer to potty train. I began to worry that by being so careful to not push, perhaps we hadn’t provided her with the opportunities she needed to begin learning. So we decided to give a new method a try this week and see how it goes from there.

I reviewed the potty training readiness guidelines found in several books and websites. She had them all: dry diapers for more than two hours at a time, the ability to pull her pants on and off, an awareness of when she was about to and after she went in her diaper, and a willingness to sit on the potty.

I spoke to the moms of the boys who were potty trained to learn what worked for them. Each did a similar thing – removed the diaper and stayed close for several days. One recommended the three day potty training method to get started. With this weekend being really nice weather and my schedule as it is, between us and the nanny I had five days in a row to really give it a shot. We’d not be overly pushy about it. If she wasn’t getting the hang of it by then, we’d just wait and try again later.

While there is an eBook on the topic you can pay for, I simply went to BabyCenter’s potty training page. They have a lot of valuable information compiled from several sources, which I’ve found most valuable when it comes to seeing all the possibilities and making an educated decision for myself.

The basics of this program are simple: Plan to go NOWHERE for three days straight, leave your child without anything on below the waist that entire time, watch your child closely at all times to identify opportunities to use the potty, give lots of fluids, have a couple of potties available around the house, and provide encouragement.

Day 1, Saturday, July 24, 2010:

7:00 a.m. Got Sweetness up and reminded her of the discussion we had before going to bed the night before – today we’re going to go all day without diapers and use the potty. She asked for her underwear. In my attempts to ease her into it and reduce early power struggles, I told her she could wear underwear, as long as she remembered she needed to use the potty. I knew this would probably not work. I was right.

7:30 a.m. She announces “uh, oh. Look! Go potty.” And starts waddling toward the kiddie potty I put in the living room, undies dripping. I tossed her undies into the wash and now she wore only a shirt. However, after about 30 minutes of her running around putting her butt on everything I couldn’t take it anymore. She’s a girl already. She can wear dresses. I changed her into a sun dress and nothing else.

That morning she peed in her brother’s room, on her bed and in the living room. Each time we took her straight to the potty, reminded her that she needed to go in the potty, then cleaned up. Cornstarch is perfect for absorbing human (not pet) waste and odor, by the way.

I absolutely had to go grocery shopping, so I threw a diaper on her and ran to the store with her. Unfortunately for the potty training, but not for Safeway, she used the diaper. I was annoyed with myself for taking her, thinking I’d messed up our training.

Then I lathered her up with suntan lotion and took her into our private, fenced backyard to play in the pool and with the water table wearing only her swim top (which is a full SPF 50 shirt). It was odd to put suntan lotion in her little butt, I tell you what.

The potty joined us outside and she sat on it every 15 minutes or so. Then suddenly, after playing a bit, she got up, went to the potty, sat down, looked down at herself, then announced, “look, it’s pee!”

We did the potty dance, hugged then I showed her how to wipe and she got to carry the potty to the toilet, dump it out and flush.

Now, there are a lot of arguments both ways about rewards. It’s actually something really frowned upon in positive discipline. However, after going back and forth, talking to other moms of potty trained kids, I decided to do it. I guess I convinced myself that using it as a part of our encouragement in the first couple of weeks could only help. Many of my pals did similar things and had no issue removing the reward once they were trained. So we decided she gets a little gummy candy each time she uses the potty. She got to pick one out.

Our excitement and success was short lived. She peed next to her chalk scribbles on the back patio about an hour later, then in the house two more times before bed. No poo to be seen – which typically takes a child much longer to do on the potty.

Yet she did have one more surprise for us before the day was out. As I was washing Mr. Man, she came into the bathroom with hubby, climbed up on the toilet step, put down the kiddy seat that is built into our toilet seat, sat down and promptly peed. We all clapped for her, Mr. Man included, and she beamed. She got to wipe, flush and pick out a candy.

Thus ended day one. We went from accidentally using the potty only once in her life to using it twice on her own accord. I’d call that progress and if this first day is any indication, it’s going to be slow going. At least I can say we only used one diaper – a big step when a box is $50!

Here’s some helpful reading if you’re about to make the potty training leap. There is so much information out there it’s easy to become overwhelmed. I found these three trusted sources to be of help. I’ve used a little from each to do our little three-day experiment. If it fails, I’ll know Sweetness just needs more time.

Jane Nelsen’s Positive Discipline Blog post on Toilet Training

Dr. Sears’ Toilet Training Basics

WebMD’s Potty Training Tips

Check out Day 2.

Thank you for subscribing to my RSS feed at Heligirl: Positive Discipline Mommy! I would love to hear your comments and feedback on Potty Training in Three Days or Less – Day 1. If you have a blog yourself, I'd love to check it out and possibly even link to it here!
Thanks for reading! Heligirl: Positive Discipline Mommy

Related posts:

1. Potty Training in Three Days or Less – Day 3
2. Potty Training – Day 4 of 3
3. Potty Training in Three Days or Less – Day 2

So we have not seen Sweetness show any more interest in the big girl potty since her little experiment that lead to a wet tushy a while back so we thought we’d try out a little something different. While purchasing the now vital door handle locks for the inside of Sweetness’s bedroom door, Hubby found a special toilet seat with a little toilet seat insert. It’s a regular toilet seat, but the little seat is tucked into the lid and you can put it down for when the little butts come along. Hubby installed it and we showed it to a very skeptical Sweetness. Then I brought in a taller stool so her feet would touch as she sat on it and she eyeballed it a little more. I let her lift up her seat and put it down. Showed her how it was safe and just right for her. She still figured I was selling snake oil.

Then came nap time and the battle that brings. So I decided to use this to my advantage.

“Oh, I’ll make a deal with you. If you try out your new big girl potty, you can just sit on the couch and read books for your rest time.”

“No,” apparently she felt this word needs more use in her vocabulary.

“Big girl potty or nap time.” I brought out the big guns, breaking it down to terms I knew she’d understand.

“Other potty,” as she pointed to the potty chair.

“No, my offer is big girl potty or nap time.”

“Big girl potty,” she said in a defeated voice. Then ever so slowly and carefully she pulled off her pants and diaper and stepped up on the stool, then sat down.

“Thank you, that’s all I asked,” I said, following the advice from my recent potty training class. Just sitting down for a second is a big step.

Then she decided I needed to be thrown a bone or something. Because the next thing I know I heard “plop.” Then she stood up, looked in and said “poop!” Afraid that if I made a big deal like I did the last time, she’ll just regress, I confirmed that’s what she saw and told her now she gets to flush, which she was more than happy to do.

She’s sat there a couple of times since with no results, but I guess we’re getting there, about as slow as a glacier, but getting there.

Another addition to the baby book for Sweetness.

Thank you for subscribing to my RSS feed at Heligirl: Positive Discipline Mommy! I would love to hear your comments and feedback on Another step? Oh God Please?. If you have a blog yourself, I'd love to check it out and possibly even link to it here!
Thanks for reading! Heligirl: Positive Discipline Mommy

Related posts:

1. Quiet Baby Steps
2. Potty Training in Three Days or Less – Day 2
3. Potty Training in Three Days or Less – Day 1

Mr. Man, in all his 10-month chunky glory, blew us away these past couple of days. At first I thought it was a fluke, so I didn’t jinx it by talking about it here. But now, after five days of pulling the same stunt with increased level of proficiency, I’m feeling rather safe in announcing his newly acquired skill.

Mr. Man can use the potty. While I wait anxiously for the 2 1/2 year old Sweetness to do more than just sit there and demand more stories, Mr. Man just does his business and is done with it.

It happened innocently enough. We were giving Sweetness her “Tips and Tails,” what we call her non-bath ritual where we wash her face, hands, feet and diaper area as she sits on the counter with her feet dipped in the sink. Hubby thought it would be fun to put our little Mr. Chunk on the potty seat I’d set on the toilet in hopes Sweetness would be inspired to use it. The little dude just grabbed on and went for it.

It made some sense. Suddenly there’s a little breeze down there and he hears the water running in the sink. Who wouldn’t just letter rip? The next day I went to a class appropriately titled “Goodbye Diapers,” where I hoped to learn the secrets of convincing Sweetness that it was “time.” When I returned, Hubby met me at the door with a smug look.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re not going to believe this.”

“She used the potty?!?” I said with maybe too much hope.

“Close. He did. And when he was done with peeing, I then started hearing ‘plop!’”

“No freaking way! Our 10 month old son, the sex that takes the longest to learn this stuff, is doing BOTH in the potty? Did she watch? Did she take notes?”

Evidently, Sweetness helped Daddy encourage Mr. Man and even gave him a kiss afterward. Wouldn’t it be nice if Baby Brother taught Big Sister how to use the potty by example?

Now, I’m not naive enough to believe that Mr. Man is doing any of this with the conscious intention to be potty trained, nor am I praising my superior parenting abilities. We just stumbled upon this, fully by accident.

But I’m now hopeful (maybe naively so) that if we make this a regular routine before bedtime, and possibly even a couple of times a day as we’re attempting to convince Sweetness to use her potty, that he’ll just form himself a nice little habit and we can at least save a few diapers in the meantime.

Then maybe, just maybe, when he’s emotionally ready, he’ll get the hang of it sooner than Sweetness has since he’ll have been in the habit for so long. Wouldn’t that be nice? Oh the blessings of little miracles.

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Related posts:

1. Potty Training Update
2. Potty Training in Three Days or Less – Day 3
3. Potty Training in Three Days or Less – Day 2

Too cute, I had to borrow this from Babble.com.

Out of the blue yesterday after I got home from work and the nanny left, Sweetness stopped what she was doing and stared off into space – classic potty behavior. She then looked at me, grabbed the front of her diaper and said, “Sit on potty. Diaper change.” Though I knew she already went, I jumped out of my seat and ran to the bathroom all excited about her renewed interest in the potty. “Maybe we’ll be out of diapers by high school, instead of college,” I think as she follows me to the bathroom. We stopped by her little potty and I proceeded to undo her pants and diaper when she grabbed my hands and said,” “no, big girl potty” and pointed to the toilet.

I was stunned into silence. The big girl potty? That big scary thing she’s screamed blood murder about the couple of times in her whole life I’ve had the audacious nerve to suggest she might want to sit on? I think I actually said, “Are you serious?”

We walked the few feet to the big girl potty and I showed her she could put her stool in front of it and step up. She pushed my hands away and low and behold, she did it herself. She stepped up, turned, sat down carefully and slid back a bit, all by herself, and told me as much, “all by myself, you did it!” (She’s still working on pronouns.) She got on and off and then started to get silly, smiling, singing, kicking her feet, so proud of herself. I warned her to be careful, to keep her feet on the stool and hands on the seat. She must have thought I was full of hot air. Until it happened.

“Splash!” Oh the screaming that accosted my ears as I suddenly envisioned my dreams of pre-college potty training fly out the window (just above my head and a little to the left). This was a delicate moment, I knew it. She could be scarred for life – afraid to sit on the toilet now for several years – if I didn’t play this right. I pulled her up right away and resisted the urge to say “it’s alright.” If it was alright, she wouldn’t be screaming. Now more than ever I HAD to get the connection thing right.

“That scared you. And the water’s cold, isn’t it? It’s just water. Cold water. Like a cold bath.”

She took a couple of more breaths of crying then settled down really quick. “Cold.”

“Aw, yes. It’s cold. You know what? Mommy did that too when she was little. That’s cold on your butt. But look, now we can wipe and flush.” I showed her how to pull off the toilet paper and she LOVES to flush, so suddenly it was all worth it. She flushed and then stepped back up and sat back down, this time herself she said, “be careful.”

In the end, she sat on the toilet in the kids/guest bathroom for about 20 minutes then followed me into the master bath and got on and off that toilet for another 20 minutes while I took a shower. She found ours to be more comfortable as we have the elongated seat (not as wide for a little tushy) where the guest bathroom’s seat is round. Despite this 40 minute foray into the world of the “big girl potty,” no business was actually done. She sat on it again before bed and again this morning. Still nothing. We did take a trip to Babies R Us and got a little travel potty that sits on the toilet so she can hold on and not fall in. She actually wanted to use it at the store, so we did. Still no business though.

One small step for potty training. One giant gin and tonic for Mommy.

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Thanks for reading! Heligirl: Positive Discipline Mommy

Related posts:

1. Another step? Oh God Please?
2. Potty Training Update
3. Use the Potty Daddy?

A long time ago in a house just over yonder, Jen had visions of no more diapers, at least on her little girl. With each bi-weekly Costco trip her eyes would pop at the cost of diapers and wipes as she stopped calculating the cost of diapers in lattes and started counting them in blu-ray DVDs (two size 5 diapers cost three DVDs).

Then suddenly, the little cuteness and love of Mommy’s life started making suggestions that she again wanted to try to use the potty. “Praise God, Budda and/or Allah,” our enduring hero shouted as she happily ripped the diaper from the little cherub’s tushy and plopped her onto her little girl potty.

But alas, nothing left the child’s body despite her eagerness to sit there for long periods of time demanding a repeat read of “Elmo Can Use the Potty.” Our hero perused websites and read books, looking for that ideal tidbit of advice that might lead to the illumination of her little girl’s mental light bulb. A couple of sources suggested dumping out the diaper into the toilet to show where the poo is supposed to go then let the child flush. “Worth a shot,” our intrepid mommy thought. Little Sweetness found this new development very interesting and immediately began announcing “use the potty” after every poo. AFTER every poo, so she could watch mommy take off the diaper and dump it into the toilet.

“I don’t think so,” our slightly steamed starlet fumed after a week of this messy madness. And she stopped this action much to the disappointment of Her Highness, who now, incidentally, announces “go potty” then the minute mommy takes off the diaper and sees it’s already full, Sweetness throws herself, poopy butt and all, onto the bathroom floor screaming “in the toilet!!” as she points to the diaper. As if that will make mommy want to play along. Yet mommy knows the only way Sweetness will get into this is if mommy acts like there is no pressure and it’s no big deal. Mommy is cursing herself for forgetting to put tonic water on the shopping list. No G&T for mommy tonight.

Fear not. Our heroic heroine is somehow gleaming comfort in the fact that Sweetness will indeed learn this skill before high school, right about the time blu-rays become obsolete. So, in the end, Sweetness is really just saving mommy from buying all her movies again. Really.

Thank you for subscribing to my RSS feed at Heligirl: Positive Discipline Mommy! I would love to hear your comments and feedback on Potty Training Update. If you have a blog yourself, I'd love to check it out and possibly even link to it here!
Thanks for reading! Heligirl: Positive Discipline Mommy

Related posts:

1. Potty Training in Three Days or Less – Day 1
2. Potty Training in Three Days or Less – Day 3
3. Potty Training – Day 4 of 3

With Sweetness sneaking up on 2 years and 5 months, we decided it was high time she started to get serious with this potty training business. Last spring we got her her own potty – a pink Baby Bjorn thing that was just the right size for her. She sat on it with her clothes on, put her toy animals on it, talked about it and even used it once before a bath. Then, nothing.

After about six months of this we started sitting her on it in the mornings and evenings with her pants down, reading to her. She even has a few potty books, a quick $1 board book from Target and a fancy, push the buttons and Elmo laughs enough to put mommy one step away from the loony bin talking book. God knows I’ve listened to Elmo proclaim “Elmo can use the potty” enough that I’ve earned the chance to see my little female offspring unit try to copy the furry red Muppet from hell.

Then, suddenly last October, she used the potty one night. I gave her lots of hugs, told her that she must be so proud, helped her dump it out to the toilet and flush, and talked with her about what a big girl she was. Then she turned around and did it again the next morning. ‘Yes,’ I thought. ‘This is it. We’re on our way.’ Then, that very afternoon, she declared a potty strike. She used her new favorite word (‘no’) loudly and with the threat of a hurricane force tantrum at the mere mention that pottying just might be something she might like to dabble in before college. And it stayed that way until just after Christmas when she decided she was cool with sitting on the potty again and letting Elmo talk to her (which made me wonder what was worse, a teenager in diapers or listening to that freaking book again.) But nothing in the way of actually going potty.

So I decided I might up the stakes a bit. Yesterday I got her Highness some training pants. These little undies have some extra padding designed to help absorb a bit, giving you valuable minutes to get your little mess maker to a room with easily cleanable surfaces before it got really bad. Now we’d been talking about underwear, and she knew what it was. When I took them out of the bag, she said “underwear.” She let them sit on her changing table until she decided to give them a try after yesterday’s after-nap diaper change. We talked (and by we, I mean I) about how she had to use the potty and not go in her new underwear. Well, I could have talked until I turned blue. Every question of if she needed to use the potty was met with a ‘NO!’ Then she went to the front door under the guise that she was opening the door to let the dogs in. She just stood there looking out. She’s done that before. I thought she was waiting for the dogs. Then she turns and announced “poopy diaper.” Awww, crap, I thought. And I was right. But she didn’t stop there. She then wet herself profusely. The way she walked to the bathroom was almost worth the mess we had to clean up. She got an immediate bath and we ran the wash. I knew that would happen and would most likely again. It’s a learning thing.

So today after the nap I pull out the underwear and what should my waiting ears hear?

“NO!”

Sigh.

Thank you for subscribing to my RSS feed at Heligirl: Positive Discipline Mommy! I would love to hear your comments and feedback on Adventures in Potty Training. If you have a blog yourself, I'd love to check it out and possibly even link to it here!
Thanks for reading! Heligirl: Positive Discipline Mommy