We Are Fami-Lee

We Are Fami-Lee

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Potty Training

For those of you who care, and believe me, it will NOT hurt my feelings if you don't, today was Day 1 of potty training Samantha.  She will be 22 months on the 9th, but I've had a feeling that she's been ready since she was about 17 months.  I just wasn't ready.  But since 17 months, she's spent a lot of time sitting on the potty (when I wasn't too lazy, I'd put her on the toilet without clothes and she went on the potty 3-5 times), listening and talking potty talk, learning words, and even telling me when she was peeing or pooing in her diaper.  I was impressed, but certainly not ready to do anything about it.  It was the summer and I didn't want to spend all this time inside when it was beautiful, so we waited.

It's cold outside now, so I thought, when would be a better time? Holidays are coming, but I have enough time before then to get this done; plus, I wanted a lot of time before baby #2 comes in February.

This morning was a little hectic.  We started after breakfast.  The very first time I put her on the potty, she went!!!  We did a celebration dance (there's a song that I found on youtube that's awesome) and she got to put a popsicle stick in the potty jar.  We set the timer for 10 minutes, drank lots of juice, and waited.  Accident.  That's fine.  We did our accident routine and reset the timer.  She stayed dry for 10 minutes, so I gave her a chocolate chip, put her on the potty and she went!!!  We did a celebration dance and she put a popsicle stick in the potty jar.  10 more minutes and more juice.  Accident.  Accident routine.  Timer.  Within 2 minutes she'd had another accident.  Then another.  Even after her having to get cleaned up every time (including getting in the shower in which I didn't quite wait for the water to get warm...).  I don't know if she was testing me to see if the same thing would happen every time, but it was a little crazy. The next 2 times she had an accident, she told me, stopped and we were able to go the rest of the time on the potty.  So we celebrated and put popsicle sticks in the potty jar.  I wasn't about to "punish" her for telling me and holding it (ish) long enough to put the rest in the potty. She had one more potty success and one more accident and the last accident was a doozy.  We had just been on the potty for about 20 minutes (I pulled out the iPad to get her to stay on!) and nothing.  It was almost time for nap and I was going to put a pull-up on her (she usually poos as she's waking up from her nap so I didn't want to risk it) but I wanted to change the laundry really fast.  Of course, in that 1 minute of time, after the 20 minutes on the potty, she climbed on our couch, and peed everywhere!!!  It was the biggest accident or success of the whole day!

After cleaning and putting her down for a nap, I took a little nap myself.  I slept for about an hour, she slept for 2.5.  She was exhausted!

The afternoon was a little less dramatic.  She never had a success on the potty and she only had 2 accidents, but they were the only-have-to-wash-the-undies kind.  She was able to stop before it was a huge mess.

I feel like it been a little bit of a regression.  Well, I feel like she was excited about the whole potty training idea at first.  Sitting on the potty was new and exciting and so was wetting herself.  Once that wore off, nothing.  I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

There were a couple times that she told me she had to go pee, but once we got there, nothing.  I guess that's good too.

Anyway, if anyone has any encouraging thoughts or tips, I'd be happy to hear them.  Today was hard.  As I told a friend, I knew it was going to be hard, but I knew Sam was smart, and ready, and awesome so I thought maybe it wouldn't be that hard.  But, I was reminded quite quickly that even though Sam is all of those things, she is also a stubborn, tantruming, almost 2 year old.  So, it was quite hard.  I'm hoping tomorrow is better.  I'm really hoping.  Like really.  Really, really.  

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