Potty Animal

Since the beginning of the year, Eliza has been sitting on the potty off and on. At first it was exciting and she got a sticker just for sitting. Then not much happened and it got old. She resisted sitting on the potty. In our experience she would always go right after she got off, so when she said she was done and wanted off, I would make her sit a little longer. I'd leave her alone for a minute (she concentrated on it better when I wasn't there) and wait just around the corner. She would get mad. Potty training wasn't any fun for either of us.

We tried doing panties during the day a few times, but I really had to force her to sit on the potty and practically hold her there, then she would have an accident right after I let her off. It was exhausting.

Then we got Potty Power. It was recommended by my friend Nancy who potty trained her barely 2-year-old son with it. I got it from the library first. After we maxed out our renewals, we went ahead and bought it on Amazon. It was magical. The fun and energetic songs cover all aspects of potty training. Eliza loves singing along with the songs. Suddenly the potty was exciting again.

After a week or so of gearing up with Potty Power and casual pottying, I decided to go full speed ahead. I put her in panties first thing in the morning and she wore them until after her bath at night. The first day was full of accidents-- not a single success. It was frustrating and exhausting. I was debating continuing, but hoped that she learned something from her day of accidents. I was still undecided until she asked for panties when she woke up. Day 2 was much better. She had 3 successes and about 3 accidents. Day 3 was even better with 7 successes (including a poop) and 2 accidents (one at nap time and one in the car after being out for a while). She only had 1 accident on Day 4 and that was because we kept her out too late. On Day 5 she was accident-free! She even went potty 4 times at church. She did have to be bribed with a Tootsie Roll, but it was worth finally breaking the barrier of using a public potty.

It has been a week and a half now and the only accidents she has are about every 3 days at nap time. In fact she has woken up dry in the morning for the past 3 days! She used to have the soggiest diaper in the morning, so we were floored when she woke up dry and figured it was a fluke. She continues to amaze us.

A funny side effect of potty training is that Eliza has become so accustomed to the freedom of a diaperless bum that she has been taking her diaper off at night. Every night when we go in to check on her before we hit the hay, she is laying asleep in her bed bare-bummed. We refasten her diaper and she keeps it on until the morning.

Besides watching Potty Power, we had a few more little incentive programs going on. My friend Kari suggested the toy-on-the-fridge incentive. Since Eliza is into Dora lately, I got out a Dora puppet from the "Toys we're not using now" bin. (She didn't even know we had one because she didn't know who Dora was when it originally made its way to our house.) I put her up on the fridge and told Eliza that Dora really wanted to play with her and that she'd come down after Eliza went potty. It made Dora sad when Eliza had an accident, so she had to go back on the fridge. When she had another potty success Dora could come down again. This worked wonderfully. After she'd go potty she would be so excited to go get Dora. I thought I'd have to fight with her when Dora needed to go back on the fridge, but Eliza was quite mature about it. She would sadly surrender Dora without a fight and tell me that Dora needed to go on the fridge because Dora was sad.

We also did a sticker chart a-la-Melanie, another mommy friend. We took a coloring page out of one of our many color books and wrote the numbers 1 through 20 in the white space around the picture. Every time she went potty, she got to put a sticker on one of the numbers. When she filled up the whole page, she got to choose a prize. For prizes, I got her things she needed or that I was already going to get her. It was (and is) exciting for her to earn them and I had a good reason to give her things. I got a Dora dominoes game at a rummage sale for a quarter and it's her favorite prize so far. When she goes #2 in the potty, in addition to a sticker, she gets a cookie or muffin or other little treat. Usually this is only once a day and sometimes every other day.

We are very pleasantly surprised with our little Potty Animal!

I have pictures too, but I'm pretty sure you don't want to see them :)