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| Excited to be wearing underwear |
Since 8:50 this morning we have been sitting on the floor outside the bathroom in our underwear. (Yes, me too. It was the only way I could convince her she didn't need to bother with pants.) At 12:45, I finally got her down for a nap in her "nighttime underwear" (aka Pull-ups) after exhaustion had gotten the best of us.
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| Lots of fluids = lots of opportunities to practice using the potty |
Leila is 28 months old, the smartest child I know (I'm the mom. I am allowed to be biased.), and also the most independent. She does not fit the profiles of the young children in the book, Toilet Training in Less Than a Day, who seem to do everything the mother asks of them without protest. I'm thinking it's because this potty stuff is not new to her.
Leila has been randomly going pee on the potty for a few weeks and before that would pretend to go when I did. She already knows how to sit down, what it feels like to pee, how to use toilet paper, and how to flush the toilet. We've been talking about the importance of keeping our underwear dry and the people she knows that wear dry underwear. She's been anticipating this "Underwear Party" since last weekend.
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| We kicked off the party by getting rid of the diapers |
None of this is bad, it's just different than I expected, based on the plan I read in the book.
- She had no interest in teaching her stuffed animals or dolls how to use the potty.
- She was very reluctant to drink all the fun drink choices I had for her.
- She initiated her own "dry underwear checks" just to get more treats.
- She did not realize (or point out to me) when she was wet. Yet she stopped herself from peeing any further, and then finished peeing in the potty after I noticed.
- She did not care to make up any potty songs and got tired of talking about pee, the potty, and dry underwear by nap time.
Leila did an amazing job!
- She learned how to pull her underwear up and down (and of course still needs my help).
- She choose to use the little potty instead of the potty seat that goes on the big toilet because that is what we saw in all the videos and books.
- She LOVED the Potty Time application on my phone. It made her so happy to get positive phone calls from Rachel and the accident calls made her unhappy.
- She changed out of her own wet underwear, put it into the hamper, and picked a new pair out without a fuss.
- She helped me clean up the one small accident that actually got onto the towel we were sitting on.
- She only had three small accidents in the 3 1/2 hours we spent outside the bathroom.
Where do we go from here? Well, I do not be sitting in that 4x4 foot space outside our bathroom after nap time. But I will NOT be giving up either.
I plan to spend our afternoon down in the main living area of our house, doing what we normally do...AND checking for dry underwear every 5-15 minutes, offering a lot of drink choices (with extra bribes if necessary), and continuing to reward her efforts with praise, treats, and love.
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| Yummy bribes |
We are doing this 100%. I am committed to potty training Leila...and very happy I will be going to work tomorrow. (Thank goodness my mom is here to do the follow up!)
