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| Photographic evidence |
A couple weeks ago we decided Emily was old enough to handle the responsibility of getting herself to an actual bathroom in the middle of the night instead of keeping a little potty in her room for her to use. Having the potty in her room was easier for her at first, and easier for us to just give her a water bottle and a potty, tuck her in and say "You cannot, unless you are injured, come out of your room at night until your clock turns green". Now she's old enough to use a full-sized potty with ease, and she understands "Ok, you can come out of your room when your clock is not yet green but ONLY to potty, then go right back to bed". I moved the potty from her room to the downstairs bathroom and figured I'd just leave it there until Charlotte starts to potty train.
Charlotte was not showing any interest at all, until Sunday night. She had diaper rash something fierce, so we were letting her have "naked time" to help her heal. Right before her bedtime she accompanied me into the bathroom, and then just sat down and used that little potty. We fell all over ourselves praising her and applauding and she was pretty pleased. I figured it was a fluke, slapped a diaper on her and put her to bed.
The next morning, after breakfast she pulled off her diaper and used the potty again. Huh.
So I bought some pull-ups, and decided we'd give it a shot. I bought generic pull-ups because they were discontinued and pretty cheap (score!), but it turns out they are kind of confusing and awesome. At least I know now why they were discontinued.
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| Shrek princesses...neat-o |
The first pull-up we selected was just fine
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| Yep, those sure are Shrek princesses |
But then things got weird
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| Yep, those sure are...NOT Shrek princesses. |
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| Cinderella? Ok, I'll take your word for it |
Why does Snow White look like an Indian Goddess?
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| I think I've seen this tattooed on a guy's arm at the gym |
Anyway, back to potty training. I have been through the ringer before, and it is bittersweet. Sweet because, well duh, once your kids are fully potty trained you don't have to deal with their poop on a daily basis anymore (hopefully). Bitter because it is MONTHS and YEARS and gallons of pee to clean up off the floor of Toys R Us and four star restaurants and floor model playgrounds and HOURS of squatting on the floor of public bathrooms balancing an indecisive toddler on the nasty toilet before your kid is ACTUALLY self-reliant enough to use the bathroom all on their own. I'm not mentally prepared, I thought I'd have 6 more months of being able to drive somewhere without pulling over 3 times for my kid to pretend to pee! This time around I had decided to be all zen and give it plenty of time and let things happen when they happened. They're just happening a lot earlier than I had thought. I started potty training Emily at 27 months at the pediatrician's recommendation, and here's Charlotte now at 20 months using the potty all on her own and having very few accidents...it'd be pretty dumb to not take advantage of all her interest. This girl never ceases to amaze me.
The only problem is that while she is perfectly able to run to the potty and use it while naked or while wearing just a dress, she doesn't have the motor skills yet to pull her pants/undies/pull-ups up and down by herself. That makes gym daycare-type situations very tough. I am guessing it's just going to take longer to get Charlotte fully trained. Which kinda sucks because potty training was long and arduous enough with an older child last time around, I have no wish to make it take even longer. We'll just have to rely on pull-ups more this time around, I suppose.
So I guess I need to go get some more packages of the multi-ethnic NOT Shrek princess pull-ups before they run out. Trying to use anything else after experiencing these babies would just be boring!
1 comment:
try the towel potty training method.
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