At the beginning of the summer Hannah started showing signs that she was very ready to potty train. She would hold it for hours and hours and finally I would tell her to to tee-tee and she would say okay, walk behind the chair, squat down, tee-tee, and then walk out for me to change her diaper. Now she didn't do this every time but she did it often. I felt bad that I hadn't started training her but I just didn't want to start that in the middle of our busy summer schedule. I did the 3 day potty training method (you can get the details here) with Emily and it worked so well I wanted to do it with Hannah too. The trick is finding 3 days in a row that you can commit to staying a home and focusing on potty training. So we finally found a weekend toward the beginning of August that we didn't have anything major scheduled and we decided we were going to have our potty training weekend. Good times.
Here is my cute 2 1/2 year old picking out her new potty seat. It feels like yesterday that we potty trained Emily (Hannah was 6 months)...time's flying.
.JPG)
So for 3 days we gave her as many fluids as possible so that she would have many opportunities to learn the signs of when she needs to go potty. You said over and over and over and over again "tell Mommy or Daddy when you need to go potty." And then we said it again. We gave her 1 M&M for tee-teeing in the potty and 5 for a poopy. It's a silent reward so we don't make it a bribe (we didn't say "if you go potty you get M&M"), but after she pottied we cheered and clapped like she'd just run a marathon and then gave her an M&M. Poopy is always a little harder to get comfortable with. So we started out the weekend trying to give her lots of fiber. We also ended up making a poopy chart pretty early on. I think both have helped.
All of our potty supplies.
Me and my big girl right after put big girl panties on her for the first time.
It was a little tricky trying to keep her drinking throughout the day so that she could have lots of opportunities to go. She didn't really want anything to drink, so we had to keep giving her different cups and drinks to keep it exciting. Just look at that cutie.
Hannah's poppy chart. Bert's asked if he could get a poppy chart too. Ha. That's a negative.
Hannah is doing so great, but potty training is a tiring thing...for everyone involved. That first day we took soooo many false alarm trips to the potty. Later that first day she started going some, but she would only go just a little bit each time. It's a learning process for sure. Anyway, at the end of the second day we were finishing up dinner and I had said that maybe we could go outside a play in the yard for a little while before bedtime. As I was finishing up the dishes Bert informed me that it was raining outside. I was SO disappointed and surprised...it had been pretty all day. I was beginning to feel a little trapped in my potty training house, so I decided that we were going outside rain or shine...I told the girls to go put on their boots. Bert, Claire and I sat in chairs in the garage while we watched the big girls play in the rain. They had so much fun and we enjoyed smelling the rain and watching our girls play so much!
Emily preferred the umbrella at first but Hannah didn't want to be anywhere near the it (maybe she was feeling a little trapped too:) ).
Emily decided after awhile that it did look like fun, so she put down her umbrella and started jumping in the puddles.
Emily was such a patient, loving big sister the entire weekend. There were so many times when we were right in the middle of reading a book and Hannah would say "I gotta go potty" and we would drop the book and start running for the potty. Emily would just wait patiently for us to get back. Hannah got lots of M&M's through out the weekend and Emily understood that they were for her sister and only asked for one twice throughout the weekend. She was also Hannah's biggest cheerleader when she had successful potty trips. She's a great big sister.
The potty training is going just great!! I mean she's had 2 tee-tee accidents the first day and 2 the second day and she hasn't had another accident since (twice she started to go just a very little bit, stopped herself, told me, ran to the potty and finished in the potty...those two times don't even count). She hasn't had a poopy accident since we finished the 3 days. She's still having some false alarms (especially with the poopy) and she doesn't always go when I want her to (like when we're about to go run an errand), but I'm giving her an A+ for sure!
I decided that I wasn't even going to try to nighttime potty train her for a few more months (had some trouble with Emily waking up wet every night). This goes against the 3 day method, but I decided I was going to be a rebel and do it my own way. We put a pull-up ("night time panties") on her just before she gets in the bed. She wears regular panties for nap time. Would you believe that she hasn't wet the pull-up one time in over a week? She wakes up dry every morning. I guess I should go ahead and switch her back to regular panties.
We're so proud of you, Hannah Beth!
No comments:
Post a Comment