Potty Train Your Toddler in 3 days: DAY 2

Day 2
I was actually excited for Day 2! Day 1 (or the 1/2 day) had gone much better than I had expected and Day 2 was a Saturday! That meant I had a potty training partner!!! Woohoo!

I had to leave for a dentist appointment before baby girl woke up, so the night before, I gave my husband a quick guide to potty training! And from what he tells me he actually followed it!

When she woke up, he made sure to take her diaper off and let her play in just her pajama shirt for the morning.  First place they went, however, was the potty.  He sat and read stories with her for a little while, but she seemed as if she didn't have to go.  ( I am thinking she probably went in her diaper before she got out of her crib or else she probably would have had to go pretty badly).  So, potty in hand, they went downstairs and Alissa played while Daddy made some breakfast.  Before eating he had her sit on the potty to try to go pee pee again, but had no luck.  So he put her "big girl pants" on her and they sat and ate breakfast.   After that they played and he made sure to remind her about going potty, and took her to sit on the potty several times.

As I arrived home about 2 hours later (made sure to do a little shopping and get my Starbucks after the dentist), she still had not gone to the bathroom on her potty.  I knew by this point she was probably getting close to the point that she had to go.  And I also found out that my "potty training partner" had some fire company duties to attend all afternoon!

So as he left, I had her sit on the potty and we played Mrs. Potato Head, read some books, and even managed to do puzzles all while she sat on the potty.  Not sure if playing while she is sitting on the potty is again the best idea, but she doesn't seem to mind sitting there, she enjoys my attention, and she gets to play with her toys.  As we play I keep asking her if any pee pee came out or if she can try to go pee pee while she is sitting there.  She will sometimes stand up to check what is in her potty, and if nothing is there, I often ask her if she wants to sit down and try again or if she wants to take a break.  We spent a few minutes going through the motions and she eventually pee peed! Had our big Hurrah Party, put our Elmo sticker in the Saturday Column, and did some more cheers!

This climbing stuff is so much easier without a diaper

I then decided to head outside before the rain started so we could get some fresh air.  I only put some capri pants on her and nothing else.  We played outside for about 45 minutes.  I did keep reminding her she didn't have a diaper on and to tell me if she thought she had to go pee pee.  I also joked with her telling her she could pee pee in the grass if she had to, just like Star and Joules (our dogs).  But she stayed dry the whole time we were outside.

When we went in the pants came off, and we tried to pee pee before we sat down to have a snack, which was unsuccessful.  As we sat and had our snack I noticed she wasn't eating a whole lot, and was getting very antsy sitting in her chair.  Took her out of her chair and walked over to her potty with her.  She sat for a little while reading a book, and I could tell the pooping had begun.  Went through the same steps, hurrahs, sticker, more hurrahs.  I let her have 2 stickers this time since she did pee pee and poo poo on the potty.  After this potty event however she remembered that we empty the potty and flush the pee pee and poo poo, so she actually asked to go back downstairs and "flush the poop, Mommy!"

I did put a diaper on for nap time,  I think she went again right before nap, she took a good nap, and when she woke up (with a dry diaper), we went right to the potty.  We again had to sit and read for a little while, which she loves, but she did go again! At this point in the day she was using the potty so much more than I had expected and hadn't had any accidents! But, I had really been prompting her so much and making sure she was sitting on the potty a lot, so I decided for the rest of the afternoon and evening to back off a little bit and see how she did.


SHE WAS AMAZING! Pretty much followed the same routine as Day 1.  Let her play, would give her a few reminders, but I didn't take her over to her potty nearly as much as I had done all morning.  She went back and forth on her own. We took the potty all over the house with us.  Even bounced in her bouncey house for awhile which I thought might make her have to pee pee and may cause an accident, but she stayed dry! She went poop and pee so many times on the potty I lost track and I realized I didn't have to be "in her face" like I had been.  The evening was relaxing (well the potty training part), and she stayed dry ALL DAY!!!!

Putting her Elmo sticker on her chart

We did take her to the potty and sit with her a few times, but there was maybe one or two times that she went and sat down on her own.  But as bed time was getting closer, she wanted to watch a TV show and have a snack.  I know how distracting that can be and thought it might be a good idea if we put her pajamas on with her diaper while she watched TV.  She had her snacks and juicy and I knew after that she would probably have to go pee pee before bed.  Sat down on the potty with her, read her a few stories while she sat, and she peed AND pooped before bed time.

This day has been completely different than I had expected! I had braced myself for clean ups, planned on doing lots of laundry, had the towels and cleaning supplies ready to go,  and never needed any of it! I am so incredibly proud of her! However, I am now realizing how much I really did prompt her or take her over to the potty throughout the day.  I think we spent like 1/2 of the day sitting on the potty.  Although, we read MANY good books, I feel like I needed to just let her be a kid a little more, and accept the fact that accidents may happen and not constantly be reminding or asking her about the potty.  Good thing I still have Day 3 to work on that! :) She has also not gone potty at all when my husband is with her.  I am not really sure why exactly, I think it has to do with patience (his, love you hunny), or maybe she just hasn't had to go at those times! But unfortunately, he has some more fire company duties to attend to tomorrow too! I am hoping to have him take over completely in the afternoon and see how it goes (maybe I can even get out of the house by myself for the afternoon :) :) ) But so far the progress is great! And it seems like (fingers crossed) we are headed in the right direction!

End of Day 2! 

At this point, I don't see her being completely potty trained in 3 Days (have to go back and reread parts of the article about that).  But I feel like we are off to a great start and I really am not concerned if it takes more than 3 days.  I really just wanted to "test" the theory and see if it would work.  And for the most part seems to be.  We'll see how tomorrow goes!

Potty Train your Toddler in 3 days: DAY 1

Yeah you read that correctly, 3 DAYS!!!!! Got an email from Babycenter.com (which I had signed up for long ago, and often don't agree with or don't read 1/2 the emails they send), but the title "Potty Train your Toddler in 3 Days" got my attention.  I for some reason hadn't really been rushing into potty training our daughter. Mostly for selfish reasons like I knew it would take a lot of time and attention throughout the day and was also content changing her diaper instead of cleaning up accidents.  She had also not always been thrilled about sitting on the potty and for awhile would get upset if we asked her to sit on it, so I felt that maybe she wasn't ready.    

When I saw this email, I thought, I guess it is time to really start this process.  We had been slowly introducing the potty and she had gone to the bathroom on it a few times before, but more just by chance than actually understanding the idea. I honestly only briefly read the article, skimming, for what seemed like the important details.  And in turn kind of came up with my own plan for potty training, using some of the ideas that were shared in the Baby Center article and some ideas I had heard from friends and family. I hope over the next few days to share our "3 Day" experience with you. 

Day 1 

I am not sure that I should really count Thursday as Day 1 because I really only started the process 1/2 way through the day, but we'll count it anyway.  We had a busy morning with My Gym class and a few errands to run in which she wore a diaper.  During her nap time I came across the article and decided that since we had a free weekend ahead of us it might be the perfect time to give it a try! (They suggest you have 3 days that you can pretty much stay at home to start the training).  So after nap, we took her diaper off and the adventure began.  

Using advice from Julie Fellom (babycenter article) I left Alissa run around with only a t-shirt on for the rest of the evening.  They also recommend you have a potty for all the rooms you are going to be in, we however, only have one so we took it with us wherever we went.  She thought this was funny of course.  But it really got her interested in the potty and she was excited to use her potty in her playroom instead of just the bathroom.  So while I made dinner (made the mistake of choosing a time consuming meal) she played in her playroom, pretty much naked.  Every 10 minutes or so I would go in and remind her about her potty and she would usually end up going over to sit on it for a few minutes.  I got some books out for her to read while she sat there, and she also ended up eating snacks while sitting on her potty (not sure if that was a good idea or not, but I guess we'll find out, live and learn right!).  After about 30 minutes of on the potty off the potty, I heard "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!".  As I responded "Yes, baby?" and looked over, she was on her potty! I ran over and asked her what was in there thinking that she hadn't done anything and as she stood up she says "Ooo, What in there? Peepee!" And there was! I was so impressed because I was kind of tied up with dinner and wasn't paying as close attention to her as I would have liked.  

So after I got done praising her, giving high fives, and making a REALLY big deal about her pee pee in the potty, we went upstairs to put an Elmo sticker on her new potty chart. I had coincidentally bought her a Sesame Street Potty Coloring Book earlier that day that came with stickers and a chart. We are also planning an Elmo party, so Elmo is a pretty big deal in our house right now. I wasn't sure if stickers were going to work as a reward, but I tried to make a big deal about how cool they were, and let her put them on the chart herself.  We hung the chart on our bathroom door where she can reach it.  She put her sticker on and seemed to be pretty excited and proud of herself.  

We went back downstairs to continue playtime and dinnertime.  Since she had just gone pee pee I didn't go in to remind her about the potty as much.  Fellom says not to ask them if they have to go because they will almost always say "No".  So I would just remind her she didn't have a diaper on, and a few times had her take the toy she was playing with over to her potty and play while she sat there.  Pretty sure she put Mrs. Potato Head together a few times while sitting on her potty.  I also started bringing her favorite books over and she sat and "read" those for a little while.  But for the most part, I let her do her own thing as I did mine.  

After about 45 minutes since the first "peepee", I see her sitting on her potty again reading her book. But this time I could tell she had her "Poop face" on.  Although I was so excited that she was sitting there pooping on her potty and I hadn't even prompted any of it, I left her have some privacy.  I also wanted to see what she would do when she was done.  As she finished, she looked out at me and yelled "Mommy, Mommy, Ooo, What in there?" I walked over and asked her the same question, and she replied "Poooop!".  We did another 5 minutes of yelling (good yelling), praising, and high fives.  Went upstairs, added another sticker to our chart, did some more high fiving, and went back down to finish dinner. 

When my husband came home from work, I handed the potty training hat off to him because dinner was STILL baking and I wanted to make sure that we didn't just spend our whole day potty training and actually ate something too! Alissa showed him her stickers and we praised her some more.  As they played together, she decided she wanted to play games on our cell phones.  She began the game playing sitting on her potty, but it is often easier for her to set the phone down on a surface to play on it.  So she got up, stood at the bench next to the potty and played her games.  Next thing we know, in a kind of disappointed voice she says "uh oh, What I do?".  Thankfully we have hardwood floors! We used the advice given on the Baby Center website, and simply told her that peepee and poo poo go in the potty and that we would wipe the pee pee up.  She seemed a little discouraged, but wasn't upset about the accident, which I am hoping is a good thing! 

Despite the one accident, we followed the same routine for the rest of the evening.  She played in only a t-shirt the whole night. I did put "big girl undies" on her while she ate dinner just cause I felt it was a little more sanitary, and didn't really feel comfortable making my poor kid eat her dinner pretty much naked at the table, haha.  After dinner, she went upstairs for her bath, took her little potty with her, and went pee pee one more time on the potty before her bath! It did take a pretty long time for it to happen though, we do alot of reading together while she sits there! We then put a diaper on her to sleep, and tucked her into bed! 

I was so happy with how the first night went! Although it was only a few hours, I guess I had just expected pee pee or poo poo to be everywhere! I was thrilled to find that wasn't really the case and that she seemed to be pretty excited about it.  

Stickers from Day 1 

However, as I went to bed I realized that I had made plans to visit friends and family the following day, which was an hour drive, a lot of running around, and we would be out and about ALL day.  I decided to leave her in her diaper for the day, because of our crazy schedule.  We could resume our potty training on Saturday! Which we did....stay tuned for the Day 2 post! And if you have any questions about anything we tried let me know! Or any suggestions, we are always up for those, especially any suggestions on emptying/cleaning out the little potty??!!  That's always a good time! haha Or feel free to share your potty training stories in the comments or on Facebook!!!