Potty Trained

It's done.  Phew!  And I have to write about it before I forget how miserable it really was.  It was pure torture (but only for a few days, so definitely worth it)!  I have a good idea:  before people become parents, they should have to audition by being stuck in a house for a week potty training a toddler.

I jumped the gun when Rachel finally went poop on the toilet - I didn't want to miss my opportunity and since we have a lot of visitors in February, I just wanted to get the job done.  So I quickly read some things on the topic and got lots of juice, treats, prizes, panties and stickers.

In a nutshell, this was my method:
- Tons of praise and excitement and encouragement
- No timeouts or getting upset - I tried my hardest to be patient
- Repetition, repetition, repetition
- In an effort to teach her how to recognize when she need to go to the bathroom, I used the same language all day, every day.  I wanted her to be able to tell me when she needed to go rather than wait for me to take her to the toilet at certain times of the day.
- "Rachel, remember to keep your panties dry" or "Great job keeping your panties dry!" and "Rachel, be sure to tell mommy when you need to go pee or poop and then we'll run to the toilet"  Brandon said by the second night, I was saying these phrases OUT LOUD in my sleep - so sad that my dreams were also consumed with potty training!
- I couldn't let her leave my sight for a few days because I wanted to catch her if she did have an accident, so I was exhausted since I was constantly chasing her while she was dancing around or running from room to room.  The only time she had accidents, I had to blame myself - mostly it was if I got on the phone, and I think she just wanted to experience what would happen.  I should have just turned off my phone, but I might have gone crazy!  If she did have an accident, we would run to the toilet, then I'd shower her off, clean up and then she'd have to practice running to the toilet a few times, and then I'd just tell her that she needed to be sure to keep her panties dry and clean and that next time we needed to run to the toilet before it came out.
- I had treats for pee and prizes for poop and lots of stickers and she'll do anything for gum, so that is always a good reward.  I dropped the treats by day 3 and moved to a sticker-reward chart, but we kept the poo poo prizes going for awhile since she is sometimes a little hesitant to go.
- We used a potty seat on the big toilet, but we got rid of the potty seat after a week or so, no problem.  I had heard that some kids won't go on "big toilets" if they are used to their potty seat at home, but we just made it really fun by getting excited about trying out the toilets at church and Target, etc. and so she decided she didn't need the potty seat.
- At first, I was all gung-ho about doing night training at the same time even though she NEVER wakes up with a dry diaper.  That first night, she wet herself 3 times and I thought that it would be too hard to expect her to get up 3 times in the middle of the night, so we went with pull ups and I am SO glad we did.  I'll tackle that one later after she wakes up dry a few times.

Andrew was an ANGEL - he took great naps that week and put up with being set down on the floor lots while we ran to the toilet.  It seems that she would always need to go while I was rocking him to sleep, nursing or on the phone.  However, I felt bad having to "neglect" him so much for those few days, and it made me think that I maybe should have done it before Andrew was born, but I really wouldn't have wanted her to digress when the baby was born and I wanted to wait until I thought she was ready.  Rachel is two and a half (3 in June) and I felt like it was a good time for her.

The first few days she had about 2 accidents a day (like I said, I felt like they were my fault and a few of them happened when I was on the  phone or we were outside in the backyard playing) and then in the next week she only had a couple accidents.  One was when Nana came for the weekend and she was so excited to see her that she peed her pants - that one was funny!!!  So she's doing great!  I don't have a lot of patience for accidents at this point, so I'm a little more stern if it happens, but they don't happen all that often, so I'm hopeful that it worked and that I can say she is officially potty trained.  I know everyone potty trains their children, but I feel like it was a big accomplishment for both me and Rachel!  :)

My only sadness is that I think we are basically done with her afternoon nap now!  NOOOOOO!!  During the first week of potty training, she would always hold her #2 until around naptime, so she was always running to the toilet and hesitating - disaster - and was in and out of her room so much that she never could fall asleep.  I can get her to fall asleep maybe once or twice a week now and let's be honest, I'm sad about it, but if it means an earlier bedtime, then I'll take that as my consolation prize.

Oh how I miss the daily naps!!

Big girl panties!!  Her favorites are Minnie, Littlest Pet Shop, Ariel and Belle