OHHHHHH potty training. I had a HUGE love/hate relationship with the idea of starting you. I HATED to admit that my "baby" girl was already at this point in her life, but I LOVED the idea that we would soon be diaper free! (hahaha - did I say "soon"?!)
Around Sept of 2012 Miss K started showing signs of "readiness" for potty training, but there was absolutely NO way in heck that Derek and I were about to tackle such a huge project like that with her, just before a huge move across the state of Washington. We were up to our eyeballs in boxes and bubble wrap, adding potty training to the mix may have just put off the deep end. We told ourselves, after we move and get settled, we're going to start potty training her no matter what. Well, we got settled, then it was Christmas. We couldn't possibly handle potty training during such a busy time of traveling around, celebrating and not being able to give our child our full attention to accomplish such a big task. Once Christmas was over, then it was "as soon as we buy the next big box of diapers, we'll start talking to Miss K about potty training and get her ready. After a few months of buying new big boxes of diapers, along Miss K's 3rd birthday QUICKLY approaching, we knew we were making excuses.
Around March, we decided to just do it. We NEEDED to start the process of potty training. I did so much research, that I'm pretty sure everyone around me was getting sick of the fact that it was all I could talk about. What potty we should get, to what techniques we thought we might try, to oooooing and ahhhing over all the cute underwear out there that we could buy her. Out of all the research I did, the method that everyone seemed to rave about was "potty training in one weekend", or what I like to call "Potty Training Boot Camp". The main idea is that you have the potty with the child in every room, when something starts to happen, race the kiddo to the potty and by the time the weekend is over, they are suppose to understand the basic concept of what it's all about. Of course, there is A LOT more to it than what I just mentioned, but for the sake of not writing a novel within a novel, that's the jist of it ;-)
Here's the breakdown of how it all went...
Potty Training Prep
The weekend before we decided to do the boot camp, we had purchased THIS book for Miss K (which ended up being one of the best books I could find because she could really relate to it), talked to her all the time about how she's going to start using the big girl potty soon, etc. Then I got all the potties clean, stickers for rewards were ready, house vacuumed, area rugs were rolled up and stored away, and every night that week my mind was racing while lying in bed thinking of everything we still needed or forgot to tackle before the next three days began.
Day 1 of Boot Camp
Miss K woke up at 7:45am (which is not what I was hoping for, since Derek and I got NO sleep the night before because we were too anxious about it all). We stripped her down to nothing but her birthday suit because being bottomless was what the program recommended and K was going through an "I hate clothing" phase anyways, so naked was what we got. Next, we took her to the bathroom with us, showed her how it was done, celebrated when the adults used the potty, went through the steps (wipe, flush, wash hands, reward).
At breakfast, she sat on her potty seat while she watched Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood where it talks about "if you have to go potty, STOP, and go right away". We offered her any drink she would take to get fluids in her. Unfortunately, nothing happened in the potty during breakfast, which by then she was pretty done with the potty seat already and wanted to go play. She got up to play around and.....thank god for hardwood floors! She had her first accident. We tried racing her to the potty but we didn't make it fast enough to get even a tiny bit in there to make the potty sing to show her what happens. So, we went back to offering her all kinds of drinks - water, juice, milk, lots and lots of water. Then the waiting started again.
At 9:03am - first pee!!! This time we were ready and got her on the potty just in time for it to catch something! The look on her face was priceless when her potty started singing! PHEW! So far, so good. She thought it was hilarious.
At 10:07am - she ended up peeing on the floor so we raced her to the potty and out of no where she screamed so hard and we think it's because she thought sitting on the potty was a punishment or she was feeling anxious with us all watching her and wanted nothing more to do with what we had planned for her that day around potty training. We decided to stop immediately since we didn't want her to associate using the potty as a bad thing. I figured if we waited a couple weeks she would forget and not associate it with being bad anymore :(
We, not so patiently, waited those few weeks, NO ONE was allowed to mention anything about using the potty during that time and we tried again, but this time we didn't want to do the weekend boot camp. During those few weeks, anytime she has asked to sit on the potty, we humored her. However, the SECOND we would enter the bathroom, she's completely fall apart so we just told her that it was okay and that she didn't have to if she didn't want to, and we praised her for even telling us she wanted to try.
It was really hard to go through that because my husband and I felt that we failed miserably and we became disappointed in ourselves thinking we did so much wrong. We immediately started reaching out to other parents, friends, family members, asked for help on how to get ourselves out of this "hole" we created. My cousin gave us a DVD that she used with her toddler, she had a tough time potty training her daughter too so we gave it a try. Miss K liked it, but still could care less about toilets and what potty training was about. A week later we actually had a visit with Miss K's new pediatrician. She suggested that we just drop the subject with her altogether until SHE was ready, but at this point, she wasn't having it. I really hate to admit this, but I didn't really like that idea because Miss K turned 3 shortly after our first attempt and we both felt so pressured as parents to have a potty trained three year old. Thankfully we were reassured that it wasn't uncommon for girls to not potty train until almost 4 years of age.
While we waited, the guilt and pressure were killing us. There were moments where her 2 and 3 year old cousins that were potty trained were asking "why does she wear diapers" when they didn't. There were also our friends and family that wanted to have K over, or babysit but we couldn't bring ourselves to let anyone watch her because we didn't want them to have to deal with changing her poopy diapers. What we didn't anticipate was all of the support our friends and family gave us and how they helped encourage us that potty training happening at the age of three isn't unheard of and completely normal. A dear friend of mine had the best timing one day when I was feeling really defeated thinking I was going to have an unpotty trained preschooler for the rest of my life, shared this blog post she found from another mother and I died of laughter...
http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2011/10/potty-training-almost-sent-me-to-therapy.html
With my new found inspiration after reading that blog post, I was ready to tackle it all again when the time came!
ROUND TWO!
Well, it came WAY sooner and WAY more unexpectedly than we thought. I was at my sewing machine one afternoon when Miss K approached me, pointed to her diaper and said, "Mama, I pooped, change my butt". I said, "Okie dokie, let Mommy finish this one little part of her sewing and I will change you." It was almost like someone flipped a switch and she hit the floor and threw the biggest tantrum I've ever seen come out of her! It was shocking and kind of freaked me out because she'd never really done that before. It was at the very moment where I decided there was no more waiting until she initiated potty training. After our three year old told me when she went in her diaper AND had a super meltdown when I wouldn't immediately get up to change her when I was literally thirty seconds from getting out of my chair to do so, that night, we had a little ceremony where we told her diapers goodbye by throwing them in the garbage. I know our approach this time was a little "harsh" but there was just no way after that whole episode that we were going to wait until she told us she was ready. Once we "threw away" her diapers, I had a big discussion with her about how she's a big girl, that big girls wear underwear and use the potty. I asked her if she wanted to use her little singing potty or the BIG kid potty. She expressed interest only in the big potty. Just by her making that choice felt like progress.
As soon as Miss K went to bed, her Dad and I went into overdrive that night with a late night run to Walmart to get all the supplies and goodies we needed to start this adventure the next day. We actually started to have a lot of fun with it...so much fun, in fact...we're the kind of dorks that created "THE POTTY FAIRY!" Yes, The Potty Fairy. Like Santa, The Potty Fairy, left a present for Miss K to open the next morning when she woke up. It was genius! She thought it was the coolest thing ever that she was left a present from The Potty Fairy! And so potty training began....again!
What we did differently this time around.....
Instead of watching her like a hawk like we did the first time, we sat her on the potty every half hour or so. She was put in her brand new Angry Birds underwear during the entire day and wore pull ups at night, rather than just letting her run around bottomless and putting her in diapers again at night. Putting her in diapers at night was definitely not an option anymore since we said goodbye to them. There were a few times where she resisted and we still refused to force her, so we just stuck with what we were doing. Here is what our first day looked like...
Day 1 - Attempt #2 - late May 2013
Right when she woke up, she opened her gift from the PF and we explained every part of what was in the gift. She seemed super anxious to use her new potty seat that she received, it felt like we were off to a great start. She still initally resisted getting on the potty the first time, but after we bribed her with a new lap tray with brand new markers that she received for her 3rd birthday a few weeks prior, she decided sitting on the potty wasn't so bad if she had something to do.
Our Schedule:
- From 7:30am-10:45am we sat her on the potty about every 15 minutes but around the end of that time frame, she had her first accident of the day. She started to get a little upset, but we reassured her that it was OKAY, just to make sure that next time she let us know when she has to go.
- 11:00 am: Snacktime - gold fish crackers, raisans, banana
- 12:00pm: sat on the potty (we noticed her undies were a little damp, but that was all). Nothing happening during that potty visit.
- 12:40pm: sat on potty - nothing.
- 1:00pm: sat on the potty - nothing
- 1:25pm: another accident - I caught her midstream and I calmly sat her on the potty. She had a meltdown :-( For some reason, that meltdown was really hard for me to handle, I completely fell apart WITH her. I know I shouldn't have lost it like that and cried in front of her, but it really seemed to help us both at the time haha!
- 2:15pm: attempted to sit her on the potty again, she had insane meltdowns and tantrums for 45 minutes and NOTHING was calming her down. We hung out in the bathroom until she calmed herself down, she actually didn't even try to get off the potty during that whole time, I would have let her if she wanted to get off. Once she was done I immediately convinced her to get off because I'm sure her poor bum was totally sore. I felt like the WORST mom in the world for "doing this to her" even though I honestly just sat there when I realized nothing was helping. I was so upset thinking K was totally hating us for "torturing" her. I had another meltdown (out of sight) and I think we both needed another good cry because then at....
- 4:25: sat on the potty - SUCCESS!!!!!! We did a HUGE happy dance, celebrated, did the whole routine, she was so happy and proud of herself (and so was I haha!!).
- 5:10pm: accident
- 5:30pm: accident
- 6:00pm: dinner time
- 6:20pm: sat on the potty - nothing
- 6:40pm: sat on the potty - nothing
- 7:00pm: bedtime
Even though we only had one actual success on the potty that day, it was all that Miss K seemed to need. The next day, she hopped right out of bed, ran in to get us to tell us she needed to go potty! I was SO shocked that after just ONE day (a super rough day), that she was going to do that the next morning! It was like Christmas because Derek and I both jumped straight out of bed and ran to help her! It was great! After day one, every other day seemed like a cake walk. It took about 2 months of us talking to K about using the potty and getting her to learn about the sensation of having to use the bathroom when she had to go. I can honestly say that after 2 months of staying consistent and with lots of practice, Miss K totally had the concept and routine of potty training down. It was probably much sooner than that, but I'm being generous because I can't remember exactly how long it took.
Here we are, in August, and I'm relieved to report that our kiddo is POTTY TRAINED! Sure, we still have accidents every now and then depending on her mood but as of right now, the only time she has accidents are when she physically just doesn't want to make the choice to get off her tooshie or come in the house when she's outside, to use the potty.
One other tid bit of information I wanted to share, that was shared with me, that I felt was so important to hear...DAYTIME and NIGHTTIME potty training are two COMPLETELY different concepts. Nighttime training usually takes a lot longer than daytime training. Most kids will usually have accidents at night well into elementary school. Training your body to use the bathroom at night is tough stuff for sure.
I hope that this insane novel of a post has helped someone out there that is either dreading the process or needing some encouragement because if you're struggling, YOU'RE NOT ALONE! It happens!!! I hope I didn't scare anyone about potty training but the biggest thing is to just be patient, expect ups and downs, and STAY CONSISTENT! It's all so very worth it and it gets to the point where all of you are celebrating all the time. I think the best part for me is when Miss K comes to "report" what she has done, and even though it's been a few months of training already, she still gets JUST as excited as she did on day one. It's adorable! It makes all those tough times seem like they were nothing.
I would love to hear any one's stories/fears/successes about their potty training journeys! You never know, there may be another Mama out there somewhere reading this that needs a little pick me up or some hope that she'll survive the process ;-)
I wanted to give a shout out to all of you that sat and listened to all the potty training talk I did (and still do from time to time), I know it wasn't easy, especially if you don't have kids haha! I'm sure this is how you felt....bahahaha! I still can't thank you enough for just listening, though!
