Lilly is finally interested in potty training. Can I do a backflip double whip jump and shout hooray?!!! After reading books, asking advice, having a buck naked girl n multiple occasions, pee on the floor, rank nasty diapers and o so much more, Lilly wants to use the toilet.
Here is my opinion.....in other words skip to next paragraph if you don't want to hear it. Too many people rush potty training. I can see why. Diapers get nasty..and costly. I know, here is where people who use cloth interject their opinion. I don't because it isn't for me, and I am not here to debate why because I could get myself into endless trouble in a back and forth dumb comment conversation that I don't have time for.
When Lilly first went in the big potty at 18 months don't get me wrong I was excited. I was going to take advantage of the situation, and we worked daily until it became a war on poop terror. So we stopped. The odds were against us. We maybe got .1% in the toilet. We picked it up again, and Lilly was doing great. No accidents.....but nothing in the toilet either. She could go a whole day 8 am til 4 with nothing coming out. I knew this couldn't be good. I was prone to urinary tract infections as a child as well as accidents because I was always trying to hold it. I never wanted that stupid card that the teachers pulled to be for going potty. I think that has been resolved to the point of you can't keep a kid from going potty when they need by punishing them. I had legitimate problems and I chose not to do that to my child. So we stopped. I read a few articles on early potty training and infections, and pros on early potty training, and about potty training regression, and with a new baby on the way and then here, I simply did not have the time for all that crap.....no pun intended :) But really the article on the link to potty training and urinary tract infections was interesting. You can read it here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-hodges-md/potty-training_b_1424826.html.
We did everything....incentives of candy, toys, playing at the park more often, but nothing made Lilly interested. She would go once, get the incentive and be done forever. We put the incentive in site, we praised her, we sat with her, we hugged her on the potty, we did everything. We bought her panties, pullups and training pants. We told her mommy and daddy wear panties and underwear (she always wants to be like us). We said princesses wear panties and don't poop in diapers. Everything. We have 3 kinds of potty seats including a little toilet. We put that in the same room she played in.
Finally, we just put her in diapers and let her have the accident. But that didn't get us anywhere. She would cry because she knew she had to pee, but if we sat her down she would cry because she was trying to hold it. and then if she missed the toilet she would cry because of her failure. After she went once in the toilet and then again we praised her, gave her 2 m&ms and then she would have an accident. In the attempt to comfort her and tell her we could try again, she took it as accidents are ok all the time. She would go an say "It's ok Mommy" or "It's ok Daddy" and we would assure her it is NOT ok to purposely (which is what she was doing) have accidents.
So finally, my mom gave me an advent calendar. O yay a chocolate a day for 24 days. But then I thought hey wait....24 days to create a new habit. I'll take the challenge. I gave her a candy and she ate it, and I said that she could open another door and eat the chocolate if she went all day going potty in the toilet. Right away she said OK and excitedly got the potty and sat there until she went. We said yay, I gave her an M&M drew a happy face on a chart and when she asked for chocolate behind the door, I said only when you do that again all day. To my surprise, there were no accidents. 100% in the toilet every time. She even went at Grammie and Grandpas. We found out she does not want to be praised for it as in high fiving or clapping or saying yay good job. She wants her M&M and happy face and no other attention to the issue.
The next day we had 99% including a number 2 which I was worried would be a problem, and 1 small accident in the evening.
Today, day 3 we had 100% accuracy, and she goes on demand as well as stopping what she is doing when she realizes she needs to go without being told. She even got out of bed earlier to come tell me she needed to go.
Needless to say, I see no turning back. yay! I will now have $35-$70 dollars a month extra and I am so excited I don't have to deal with all that poo again...well except for Rosalie but she is still breastfeeding, so it isn't so bad yet.
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