Potty Princess

Well, friends, its been official for over two months. We have a potty trained princess at our house! Its as amazing as you can imagine. Our first day potty training was December 29th and we haven’t turned back since. She’s still wearing diapers during nap and bedtime ‘cause my gal is one heavy sleeper, but during the day we’re 100% undies. I’m so proud of her!

I didn’t get a ton of pics of the whole process (I know you’re sad I can’t post many potty pics), but I did manage to capture this silly, short video on her first day of being an undies girl. Check out her hilarious moves!

Potty time!!!

You know my motto: every child is different! However, if you’re thinking of starting potty training soon and you’d like to hear our success story, here ya go:

-we employed the “shut in” approach, as I like to call it. Stay at home for about 3 days straight, let her walk about the house in undies alone, set a timer for every 20-30 minutes, and take her to the potty upon each alarm. Religiously. This is similar to the “3 Day Potty Training” you’ve heard of, but I just couldn’t do the naked running around thing. We’ve got enough stains on the carpet from Penny potty training! You gradually increase the time on your clock until you’re ready to make the leap into “them telling you when”…and that’s a big leap of faith!

-nap time and bedtime mean putting on a diaper, but other than those we use only undies. No Pull-Ups! Those things are the devil if you ask me. Just another ploy to get you to buy more unnecessary materials. Think about it: how does a diaper company make money?? People buying diapers!! Pull-Ups are just less absorbent, ill-fitting, rash-inducing diapers. No thanks.

-we found two cute potty books that we read to B in the bathroom as she did her business. One was from Barnes and Noble and is simply called “Potty”. It’s adorable! She also has a little Dora potty that I also took in the car with me for the first few weeks after the shut-in days. I’ll tell you right now, we used it! There are also some great disposable potties you can get from Buy Buy Baby (and probably BRU, too) for about $2. Saved us a few times!

-in addition to the Dora potty, we also made sure we were putting her on the big potty, too. Ya’ll, this girl taught herself how to climb onto the big potty all by herself! It’s awesome!!!

-after about 2 weeks of training, talking, accidents, icky public potties (ewww…be sure to keep those little, innocent hands off the icky toilet seats!) we celebrated my sister, Mary’s wedding. Yes, I agreed to put her in a diaper that Saturday so Jonathan didn’t have to deal with potty and flower girl duties while I was a bridesmaid. That was the only day I allowed a diaper.

-the Tuesday after the wedding as I was enjoying a day home with my B, she tells me “I go potty, Mommy”. It was her first time to tell me she was ready on her own. I went with her to the bathroom, turned on the light, and then she said “no Mommy, go away. I go by myself.” She led me out of the bathroom and pushed me onto the couch and told me to wait there. Then she went on her own!!!! We haven’t looked back since that day. She literally woke up one day and was trained.

-the whole “#2” issue was never really a problem for her. at first, she would basically wait until she had a diaper on to do it. thankfully, around the same time she started going peepee on her own she also started doing “the other” in the potty, too. now, we’re to the point where she’ll basically go like clockwork right before nap time. I’m pretty sure my “Where’s the PooPoo Song” can take most of the credit for that triumph. It’s pretty badass. Hehehehehe.

Things to remember:

• make sure the light is on in the bathroom! unless you’re cool with cleaning up after she missed the pot
• leave a few squares of TP out when they start going on their own…saved me a lot of TP re-rolling!
• have about 3-4 packs of undies on hand when you’re ready to start, otherwise you’ll be running to the store for more pretty soon. you go through A LOT of undies in the first week!
• be sure to push fluids when you start the process. Julie and I (of course, Abby and Bridget started potty training the same day) were both so proud of ourselves because the girls hadn’t had many accidents at first. We thought either (a) they were little geniuses, or (b) we were moms of the year. Well, both turn out to actually be true, but not in this case! We weren’t pushing fluids and they weren’t asking so there was little pee to cause an accident.
• the only way for them to really learn how to go is to have an accident. or two. or twenty. don’t be afraid of the accidents! they’ll happen and your little will be all the wiser after it. and they really will pee more if you put them on the pot immediately after the accident.
• honest truth: potty training my daughter was easier than potty training my dog.
• second honest truth: I hope for another girl when the day comes that Bridget is a big sister. Training boys is supposed to be tougher (uh, duh!) and I’m not into that if I can help it. All you Mamas of boys, I’ll be calling on your expertise if a little Adamo man enters my life in the next few years!

I can’t believe my baby girl is such a little lady! She’s the light of my life and I’m serious when I say that the 2’s are just about my favorite age so far. She’s just so darn fun right now!!!