Our Potty Training Adventure!

            The journey toward potty training has been a long time coming.  She has been showing a ton of interest in using the potty since the end of November/beginning of December.  However, I felt it was most wise to wait on potty training given all of our busy-ness that was anticipated for December.  Plus, we knew we would be flying to NY in January and didn’t want to have to travel with a child freshly potty trained.  I read up a ton on the topic and then came to the conclusion that 22 months to 2.5years is the prime potty training age and since Alethea wasn’t even going to be 22 months until the end of December that further confirmed my decision.  We did however decide on our method which was largely guided by Lora Jensen’s 3 Day Potty Training.

            Alethea continued to request the potty sporadically (especially during post bath naked time) and we just kept that very relaxed.  We returned from NY the day she turned 23 months and we basically chose to start the process as soon as we could.  We started our intensive 3 days of potty training on Saturday January 26^th.  I wavered a bit initially whether I should start it since Ben was having surgery the day before, but really felt at peace with the idea, was incredibly anxious to start, and I figured we might as well take advantage of the fact we would be homebound for Ben’s surgery recovery anyway. J

            She already had all the undies she had received for Christmas so we were set to go.  We got up Saturday morning, ate breakfast, and then the potty training began.   I changed her into panties and a long-sleeved shirt (her wardrobe for the next day), showed her the potty and explained to her that she needed to let me know if she needed to go poop or pee.  We wheeled her changing table and all her diapers out of her room and said “no more diapers for Alethea”.  From then on it was longs of encouragement telling her things like “You are such a big girl in your big girl undies”, “mommy is so proud of you in your big girl undies”, and “make sure you keep your big girl undies dry and go pee in the potty”, etc.  The premise is lots of positives and no asking her if she needed to pee so we could avoid power struggles.

Potty Training Day 1: So proud of her Minnie Mouse Undies!

            The first few days went great and she was super excited about the potty.  We had accidents of course but by Monday she was really starting to catch on and asking to go potty herself which is the part where she is considered “trained” (though still a work in progress).  She only peed 1/3 days at nap time, but peed all three days at night.  So we started waking her up an hour after going to bed to pee and she hasn't peed at night since.  And in the 9 days we have been potty training she has only peed at naptime 2 times.  She has been in diapers 24/7 since the start and I have been pleasantly surprised with how well she has been doing.   I was expecting way more accidents!

            Our biggest struggle initially was pooping.  The only time in the first three days she pooped on the potty was during naked time because she knew she had nowhere else for it to go (I think), lol.  And then she continued for the next few days to have poop accidents in her diaper even though we would catch her partway through and she finished on the potty (most of the time).  Then we had a breakthrough on Friday night and she got a crazy look on her face and ran to the potty screaming “poop!”.  Since then, she has pooped only in the potty (though that has only been twice).

            The potty is becoming less of a luxury, so we are hitting a bit more resistance to pottying.  However, she is still doing very well.  All of our outings with us have gone wonderful and been accident free.  She did however pee in the nursery at church today, but I know she will catch on to how to tell them there too. J  Sorry that was such a long update about pottying, but I am just super excited about this milestone with our little girl.  She is growing up so fast and doing so well!

In her big girl undies snuggling with Daddy to make his "boo-boo" feel better