Thursday, January 31, 2008

Gearing up

The potty chair has been out for about three months now. She uses it frequently, but not all the time. We've checked out half a dozen books on toilet training from the library and read them over and over. I think she's getting it. And when she poops she is quick to rush to the bathroom and TAKE OFF her pull-up by herself (remember, "I do it!!!") and "clean" herself up with wipes {disgusting}. I made the mistake of buying the princess pull-ups and showing them to her before I was fully committed to spend a week or two devoted to taking her potty every 20 minutes, and cleaning up accidents. We have just about finished the pack. She has big-girl panties ready and waiting, and stickers as a reward for using the toilet.

All this to say....I'm gearing up. I kept telling myself that after Christmas I was going to focus on potty trianing. Then kept putting if off til "next week". Now, it's the last day of January and I need to kick myself in gear. I am hopeful that with some work on my part, she will get this thing. If you moms of girls have any advice before I dive in head first, let me hear it. Craig gets all the credit for potty training Wyatt a few weeks after Anna was born so this one's all mine. I'll keep you posted on our progress.

My incentive is dreaming about what I could do with that extra diaper money each month!!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

From my experience, you probably won't have to bribe her much. Sarah was SO easy to potty train. She decided that "I wear my panties" and pretty much potty trained herself. She was 2 years, 4 months and that was it for her. It was so easy compared with trying to bribe my firstborn boy for months, and we'll see how things go with Matthew. He is in no way interested at this point. You'll do great, and so will Anna!

Tiffany said...

Sorry I'm no help. I know nothing on this subject. I can tell you that when my mom was potty training us girls, when stickers didn't do the trick she started getting little inexpensive trinkets at the store (like in the party favor isle), wrapping them in gift wrap, and that was what we got to pick from if at the end of the day we had a "successful" day of potty training (in addition to the stickers).

Kristen said...

Maree decided she was ready for potty training at about 2 1/2 . She would pee on the potty just fine, but when it came to #2 it was hit or miss. I would get frustrated with her when she went in her pull-up. Then my dear MIL suggested to not make a fuss about it, and soon after that she had no problem going #1 and #2 in the potty. So my only advice is to encourage but be flexible, go at their pace.

LizzyG said...

I always did an "all or nothing potty training boot camp" approach. And it worked really well for me. With each of my kids I started right after they turned two, put on the big kid underwear, and shadowed them constantly throughout the day. As soon as I saw them pause in their play, I would pick them up and run them to the potty chair. I recorded the time each time they went, which was good because you start to see a pattern and get an idea of how much they "go" in a course of a day. It only took a few days of shadowing, and then they would start to let me know when they had to go. With a whole lot of hoopla and treats, they were potty trained in no time. We did use pull-ups at bedtime though. Good luck to you! Oh, and try to avoid rewarding with a candy that you like. I learned that the hard way. I ate way too many m&m's!!! Stickers are good!