We are embarking on a challenge tomorrow. We are going to attempt the 3 day intensive potty training system. I have read a bunch online, but have not purchased any specific programs. We are going to try our own version and see what happens.
Why am I trying this crazy idea?
1) My daughter is familiar with the potty. She uses it sometimes, but not all the time. We are starting to see a little regression in her desire to use it.
2) Getting rid of diapers would be AMAZING!
3) If this is supposed to work, your child should be 28 months or younger (or so I have read). We're almost 29 months.
4) Why not? It's worth a try.
How we're going to attempt this:
1) Three days at home. No outside trips. (I'm guessing so you don't have to worry about public restrooms or potty issues in the car.
2) No diapers unless sleeping for nap or night time.
3) We are going to use underwear when she is awake. The systems tell you to go bare-bottomed, but you have to do that for 3 months afterward. This will not really work with our daycare situation. Plus if we don't start with underwear, my daughter will probably refuse to wear them.
4) We are going to push liquids, salty snacks, and watery foods like watermelon and grapes.
5) We will watch for "potty signs" and rush her to the restroom when needed. You're supposed to have a potty in every room (really every room? who has money for that), but we're going to do our little potty seat in our living space and the potty seat in the restroom.
6) Every time our daughter goes "pee pee" in the toilet, we'll do the "potty dance." I look silly, but she LOVES it already.
7) Every time she goes "poo poo" in the toilet, she'll get the potty dance and a treat. I think she'll need the treat, because we'll have more trouble with this.
8) Day one, no outside time. Day two, and hour outside in the yard. Day three, an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon outside in the yard.
(we've really played up the big girl underwear and potty dance angle this week to get ready)
My hope is that she takes to this by day 2 as most of the guides say kids will. I'll keep you posted about our progress.
We are a few hours into the experiment. We started out the day with a successful trip to the potty. We had an almost accident about an hour later and are on on second pair of "big girl" underwear. Two successful potty trips down!
ReplyDeleteHad a minor accident before nap time when she got away from me for a minute and had to change underwear and her clothes.
ReplyDeleteBUT...After nap, she has successfully pottied twice in her potty chair after telling me she had to go. NO ACCIDENTS this afternoon! YEAH!!!
We just had our first successful poo-poo about 1/2 an hour ago. I've heard that going #2 is the hardest thing to get kids to do outside of a diaper. She was a little scared at first and didn't want to sit down, but then when it was her idea, she sat down. She still didn't want to go poo-poo and we had the discussion that everybody poops. While we were going through the long list of people, animals, and tv characters we know that poop, so did she! As a reward, she got a cookie as big as her head (that she had a little help with eating). In the future, all #2s will be rewarded with much smaller cookies.
ReplyDeleteI feel so relieved that she was able to do that today. It's always been a source of anxiety for her and she got through it. I am so proud of her.
Still on the same underwear since after nap. No accidents! Woohoo!
Day 2:
ReplyDeleteA little discouraged this morning. Started out great. No wet accidents until about an hour and a half after she woke up. I stepped out of the room for a minute and came back to find a wet kid. Stipped clothes off and sat on the potty for 15 minutes with no action. Got a clean dress and underwear on and within a couple of minutes, another pair of wet underwear.
Keeping my fingers crossed that the rest of the day goes better and the underwear in the washing machine gets done ASAP!
Things got better later in the morning. We even went potty in a public restroom while at an unexpected trip to the doctor (for an unrelated reason). After nap went a little smoother with pee-pee. McKenna went when she said she had to go a few times and when prompted by me. Poo-poo was a whole other story. Not as successful as yesterday, but I know that road is going to be rough.
ReplyDeleteI did find myself asking her much more today if she had to go. And she would very adamantly tell me "nuh-uh". Most of the time if I thought she might need to go or if it had been a while, I would "bribe" her into going. If she wanted more milk, she had to try to potty first. If she wanted to go see her daddy, she had to try to potty first. If she wanted to watch the rest of a show, she had to try to potty first. Or sometimes, I would go potty and we'd do the potty dance for me and I'd ask, do you want to do the potty dance for you too? And then she'd try, just to do the potty dance some more.
On to Day 3!
Day three started pretty well. We tried for about 1/2 an hour to go potty and then decided we were done trying. I must not have caught her before she went in her overnight diaper, but she really wanted to try. She held it for about 3 hours and finally with some bribing went again.
ReplyDeleteWe did have a poo-poo incident again in the evening. She seems to wait until I am making dinner and am distracted. We discussed that it was not ok to go poo-poo in our underwear and I am hoping for improvement tomorrow.
We did have one pee-pee accident in the evening right before bath-time, but I was on the phone.
There is a lot of truth I think to the suggestions from the experts that you need to be vigilant and pay attention to your kid during this process. I think I got a little too complacent and thought, "Hey she'll tell me when she's ready." But in reality, she'd only been in underwear for less than 3 days.
That would be my biggest suggestion at this point. Make sure you don't get overconfident in your kid's abilities. You might be in for a messy result.
I will probably update this blog all week as I don't think only writing about the first 3 days is a true picture of what really happens.
ReplyDeleteDay four started a lot like day 3. Lots of coaxing to even get on the toilet the first few times. Right out of bed, again, we tried for about 1/2 an hour with no results. Then she said she wanted to try the "little potty" (potty chair type) that we have been keeping in the kitchen for downstairs needs and she was successful.
Then we went outside for about 2 hours to play (and pull weeds :) and she kept assuring me that she didn't have to go. She'd been drinking water and I didn't want to have an accident outside, so YES, I did bribe her with a cookie to try to use the potty and she was able to go. Mainly I did this, because last night when she wouldn't take my suggestion to JUST TRY, please! she ended up having an accident.
Our major success today---SHE WENT POO-POO in the potty! After nap, she was reluctant to try to go potty until I went first and then she went #2 instead of #1 and she got her celebratory cookie!
Hoping the rest of the night goes just as well.
Made it through day 4 with one pair of underwear! NO accidents! But, it did take a lot of coercing to even try to use the bathroom. We'll work on that next.
ReplyDeleteGetting ready to start Day 5. And then we're off to our first outing in big girl underwear. Luckily we're going to one of her favorite places, the zoo, and they have tons of restrooms. Will update later.
ReplyDeleteSo it's been about a week since we started serious potty training, and I think we're doing pretty well. We're still having a few issues with going poo-poo, but we've been 2 for 3 in the last few days of going in the potty, so I count that a success. I have learned a few things, though, in the past week.
ReplyDelete1. She started telling me she had to go potty when I stopped asking all the time. Very successful the last few days with her at home telling me when she has to go.
2. Going potty first thing in the morning is hit or miss. She doesn't really have to go, because she's still in a diaper at night. I need to make sure she stops drinking fluids about an hour before bed to make this a little better.
3. Going potty in a public restroom is not too scary--unless they have really loud automatic flushers. She got really scared when out once and wouldn't go until we got home. Can't really blame her on that one, and she made it home without an accident.
4. Be sure to have excellent toys/distractions on had in case you are there for a while. Some of our potties took 20-30 minutes. I think I needed more to do than she did. Much preferred her doing that in the portable potty in the kitchen than in the bathroom upstairs--because I could putter while she worked it out.
5. Sometimes you know you have to poo-poo, but there is just too much going on to really pay attention to what you're doing. Being vigilant about making her stay on the potty until she went when she said she had to poo-poo resulted in more successful attempts.
And 6. I should have done this MONTHS ago! I am so happy with how she is doing and I do wish I would have known about this/tried it sooner. Who knows if it would have worked then or not, but I would have saved a lot on diapers.
p.s. Letting your 2 year old pick out their underwear in the morning can lead to a 10 minute debate on which one to go with.