Potty Trained!!

Miss Maree has hit a few milestones here lately!  She turned 2 on October 2nd, and that was also her first day in her new big girl bed (A blog post of that is coming soon!)… she also started a two day a week preschool & got a terrible case of hand foot and mouth… so it has been crazy around here, but potty training was actually something we were going to start back in September, but we kept pushing it back because we never seemed to have 3 days straight without something going on - and this past weekend was the only one we had free until CHristmas, so I bit the bullet and did the potty training 'bootcamp' as I like to call it!

First, a friend that went to college with me, Jennifer, suggested this potty training ebook http://www.3daypottytraining.com I downloaded it and was excited that someone out there had success with training in such a short amount of time - I feel like everyone tells me how their kid kind of is trained, then regresses, or that it takes months to figure it out consistently etc.  This book addresses all of that, and now after experience, It can definitely be done in 3 days!

Next are my suggestions in additions to the book!  She suggests rewards and a potty chart all of which I do too.  The problem for me, though, is that Maree really doesn't like candy or ice cream!!! So offering her an m&m or sour gummy worm etc. held no appeal.   So I went to target before I started the training and raided the dollar bins for crazy things.. and after any successful potty she got to pick one out. By the end of the training she would go potty and then immediately say "My toy??"… but don't worry, after the toys ran out, I would show her the toy box that I had been keeping them in and said "All Gone"… she didn't even fuss… so don't panic that your kid is going to go into a meltdown if they don't get a treat after each time they go potty in the future..

This book also says to keep within like 4 feet of your child at all times during training… I actually found this to be the hardest part.  If I left the room for 10 seconds I swear she had an accident on that first day.  Anyway, I sent Ellie to a babysitters house for the first morning that I started training so my focus was 100% on her (this was very helpful)… but what I recommend that she doesn't say in the book… have TONS of crafts/games/movies etc on hand because you can't leave the house for any "sanity" breaks… I bought wooden Christmas ornaments that she got to color or paint, we had sticker books, model clay, playdoh, etc… but I felt like it worked best to have things she had never seen before because they allowed us both to play longer.

I have lots of other suggestions/things we did so if you're interested, feel free to email me or leave a message - I'm SO grateful Jennifer S. passed on her wisdom to me!!

I started the day off with 14 pairs of under ware… oh, and Maree ONLY goes
on the adult potty, this poor chair insert got used as a hat

She picked out her undies & sings the "Doc McStuffins" theme song each time we put a pair on
& We went through 9 the first day, by day 2…  4 pairs, by day 3 - no accidents!

First we threw all the diapers away
(of course I rescued them when she wasn't looking)

And the next 3 days the view of her little buns in big girl under ware just killed me!
So grown up!!

Examples of the dollar bin toys

we really did stay within 4 feet of each other!

The first day of training, the toilet paper was more exciting than actually going

Getting stickers for each successful trip to the potty

Her favorite toy from the dollar bin - she wore it ALL day

Crafts - painting a lizard

Clay Magic delight

Poor Ellie might have suffered a little bit during this training - I would come back
 from the potty and find her like this or rolled up to a wall etc. 

by day 3, she was10 for 10x in the potty so we finally busted out of the house for
a little park play time

I was also nervous how well Maree would do with this whole potty thing outside the house too.  But here is how our week went - Potty trained Friday-Sunday.  Tues she had preschool & Tues night they had a babysitter.  Wednesday we went to the zoo, Thursday was Thanksgiving and we had 9 people at our house & she has done fabulously!! So don't panic that it won't stick even if you have plans after those 3 days! Again, I hope this post isn't making me come across as some self proclaimed potty training master… I just had someone pass on helpful things to me… so I thought I would do the same to anyone who reads my blog and has young kids :)