A few weeks ago I began the laborious chore of potty training with Beloise. I was pleasantly surprised.
When thinking about this stage of Beloise life and remembering the year+ long battle with Ballerina. I shuddered and then I turned to blogs for help. I found several great blog posts on the subject.
The one that I enjoyed the most was
Potty Training in One Day . Although I wasn't going to get my hopes up that it would work in one day. I mean when do you decide that a child is fully potty trained? When they are no longer in diapers? down to one accident a day? no accidents? do no accident days EVER happen? As you might have guessed I am a little traumatized in this department. ;)
I took most of the advice from this post and tweaked them a little to work for our family. As every family is different there is no way to find something that someone else did and duplicate it successfully without changing a bit here and there.
My first step was to send Ballerina out to Grandpa and Grandma's house. I meant business and needed to give Beloise my undivided attention.
Actually first I gathered supplies.
A timer
Training panties, really a waste. I didn't do this with Ballerina and just wanted to try them with Beloise, regular panties are cheaper and just as much urine ends up on the floor.
Potty Seat
Bag full of Jelly Beans for reward
Prizes
A Potty Chart and a Brag Chart
As many books as I could fit into a handy bin
As well as disinfectant spray and paper towels.
Monday morning when Beloise woke up we got to work. I talked to her about what we were going to do that day and taking off her diaper I showed her the "big-girl" panties she would get to wear. Please hold while I climb on my soap box, being so short it takes me a minute to climb to that height . . .
I do not like pull-ups for potty training, it's simply confusing for the child. Moreover when you do finally venture out of the house for the first time DO NOT go back to a diaper "just in case" this is confusing and as we all know the key to parenting is consistency. Just have your little one go potty before you leave, right when you get to the store or location and just before you leave. You'll be fine, but just in case bring an extra set of clothes and don't pile groceries under the child. :)
This rant excludes night-time and for the first bit perhaps nap time as well.
Climbing down now. . .
Next I picked up her favorite doll and told her that Jillian would be potty training too. We went into the bathroom and I showed her how Jillian went potty (with the help of a water filled syringe dispensed from behind the doll) we clapped and praised Jillian and then it was Beloise' turn. She sat on her potty and I read EVERY book in the bin. Then I gave her a jelly bean for being so good and trying to go potty. I set my timer for 15 minutes and sat her on the potty EVERY 15 minutes. And we read ALL of those books EVERY 15 minutes.
Every time that she sat on the potty she got a Jelly Bean. Every time she went potty on the potty she got to put a sticker on her chart and call someone from her brag chart to tell them that she is a big girl now. I thought this would be fun for her but apparently she is a modest child and felt this wasn't appropriate to talk about on the phone. (I can only imagine what she will say when she is old enough to read this post.) She wanted to tell them and then as soon as they were on the phone she clammed up.
I kept it up with Jillian, the doll, as long as it seemed interesting to her. I even had Jillian have an accident and then we ran to the bathroom yelling OH NO PUT THE PEE-PEE IN THE POTTY, PUT THE PEE-PEE IN THE POTTY. It was great, Beloise loved it.
We kept our activity simple for the most part, puzzles on the floor, coloring pictures. Nothing that would be too good to pull away from if the urge came or the timer went off. Everything we did was on the hard wood floor. I only recently started letting her sit on upholstered chairs again ;).
As you can see this was a tiring day but totally worth it in the end. I started out with the potty in the bathroom thinking that she would have to learn to run that far to go to the potty anyway so we might as well start out in there. Some where around the fourth or fifth mopping up of urine I, amid tears, told my husband that I realize this is her first day but I am tired and don't want to clean up pee ANYMORE. I finally just brought the potty out into the main living area and lo and behold Beloise started taking herself to it just to sit every now and then. On one of her self guided excursions I heard a faint tinkle sound and PRAISE THE LORD! the child went potty all on her own! I think she used the potty a total of twice on day one. And after about a week I switched the Jelly Beans to only if she WENT potty. As she filled each potty chart with stickers I gave her a prize from our prize jar.
When she was close to completing her third chart we went to Costco and she got to pick out first pack of big girl panties, she chose Hello Kitty after being told that the Spider Man undies were boy undies. She was so proud of those little panties when she finished up that chart and I gave her the first pair she went running outside to show Daddy. She pulled her shirt up and the elastic of her pants down so he could see that these were indeed not diapers, not even training panties but BIG girl panties.
All in all I would say that she is an exceptional case in fast potty training. I don't know if it was the method, the child, or if we just waited long enough this time around. But she is doing great. I think she might have a fear of public restrooms though. Because she will request to go in but rarely ever does any business once she's there. So she holds it until we get home.
After about a week I noticed that she was keeping her diaper dry through nap time so we stopped putting one on her and she hasn't wet the bed yet. She's often dry in the morning too. When I get her out of bed in the morning I take her first thing into the bathroom and she nearly always goes and her diaper is perhaps a tad wet by this time.
I hope that this helps anyone faced with this daunting task or at least gives you all a chuckle. :)
~And So That's What She Did.
