Thought-filled Thursday: Training Day Part 4-the Final Chapter

I didn't know I had so much to say about poop.  But here we are again, reading about my last potty training adventure with my only girl.

Sadly (fortunately?), I don't have a picture of Ivy potty training.  Because once again, it went so fast.  The reason I have a picture of Tinkerbell was Ivy got to have a Tinkerbell sticker if she went poop in the toilet.  And she loves Tinkerbell.

Let me start from the beginning.  I got an awesome book from my friend Chelsey, who used it while training her triplets.  She said it worked like a charm.  It's called Potty Training in Three Days, or something like that.  You're supposed to train your child when he/she is 22 months old, which would have been super awesome.  But that time came and went for me, and I had just trained Troy, so I was ready for a break, and I didn't feel like Ivy was ready to train.

However, she started doing the same thing Troy had done, and sat on the little toilet before bath time, and went pee almost every time.  So that was good.  That meant she knew how to let go when she wanted.  She did that for a few months, at least.

I tried to start taking her in the mornings during the summer, but she would just sit on the toilet and cry and whine.  She was so miserable, so I gave up on that one after just a couple of days.

Then she started showing more signs, like wanting to sit on the toilet, and going and getting a diaper when hers was wet.  One day in September or October, I asked her if she wanted to go pee in the toilet all the time, and wear big girl undies, and she said yes and seemed super excited.  So one morning I had her go pee and we put the big girl undies on her.  A half hour later, she had peed in them, but didn't tell me or even react to it.  So we cleaned it up, and put new undies on her.  Which she peed in them about an hour later.

After I cleaned her up, I asked if she wanted to wear big girl undies still or if she wanted a diaper, and she tearfully asked for the diaper.  She wasn't quite ready, and neither was I.  And I really do think that the mom has to be ready as well as the child, because the mom has to deal with cleaning the accidents and helping that child run to the bathroom and all that jazz.

For the next couple of months, I could tell that Ivy was becoming very aware of her diaper and its contents.  She would poop and get this really squirmy uncomfortable look on her face and ask to be changed immediately.  She would even bring me a diaper after peeing.  She's always been a great talker, so I knew that we would be able to communicate about going potty, which is also a great help.  Not necessary, but nice.

I knew we'd have a week off of school and all our activities between Christmas and New Year's, so I decided that that would be our potty training time.  I made a little sticker chart for her, and we started the Monday after Christmas.  She had little rainbow stickers for peeing, and Tinkerbell for pooping. 

It's sad that I can't think of any crazy mishaps that happened on our first day, but maybe that's because we really didn't have any.  I know she's had accidents, but really, we worked on it that week and that's about all it took.  She would have good days with no accidents, and then days with four accidents.  But overall, she did really well, and started taking herself to the bathroom by the end of the week.

I think it helped while we were potty training to have both me and Pete around.  Because when I had to run an errand, Pete could be home with her, and vice versa.  For the first few days, we would ask her almost nonstop if she had to go pee or poop.  I'm sure she got sick of hearing us ask, but then I think it helped to keep the subject in the forefront of her mind.  Also, it helped that we didn't have to drive to preschool, or gym, or wherever else, and I didn't have piano lessons.  We could concentrate on her instead of being pulled in 50 directions.

I do remember when we started back into our daily grind, we drove Troy to preschool.  I dropped him off, and got back to the car, and Ivy was scream-crying.  I asked her what was wrong, and she cried, "I go PEEEE!!!"  I was like, oh great, she just had an accident in the car.  I felt her bum, though, and she was dry.  So I asked, "Ivy, do you need to go pee?"  And she was all "YEEEEEESSSSS!!!"  So I took her out of the car and asked Troy's preschool teacher if we could use the bathroom.  She held it all the way in to the house, which was awesome, and then went pee there.

Also, I didn't think that aiming for girls was a big deal.  They just sit, right?  Wrong.  Well, wrong for Ivy, anyway.  Because when she sat straight up, the pee would go in the gap between the seat and the bowl, and get all over the back of her pants, or the floor.  So then I had to work on having her bum hang down lower into the bowl, and lean her clear forward.  And now that's kind of how she sits by herself, which is nice.

Another time, like a Saturday night, I noticed the bathroom door was shut, and the light was on (this is after the kids were in bed).  I opened the door to smell that really yummy smell.  There were some undies in the sink, with poop in them, and the toilet was filled with toilet paper and kleenex, so much so that they were sitting in there dry.  So poor little Ivy was trying to take care of her poop all by herself, and tried cleaning it up and stuff, and had apparently run out of toilet paper-hence the kleenex.  The next day I told her that kleenex is for noses and toilet paper is for bums, and if she runs out of toilet paper to come get me and I can get her more.

And...that's about it.  I think she had an accident on Saturday, but before that it had been...who knows how long since the last one.

So hopefully my potty training stories were interesting, or helpful, or...something.  If not, at least I have them written down.  Because you can never type too much about this subject, apparently.