Potty Training Again

Our big girl is now sporting big girl underwear...no more diapers during the day!

It's potty training time again.  I'm finding that already having been through this with our son is making this time around a bit easier. (Just a bit, a tiny bit.)  The reason being that I know eventually my daughter will be potty trained.  However, my kids are just about as opposite as can be so M is not behaving at all like K did.  I feel like I know nothing, and am not sure how to best help her!  After all the drama we went through with our son and potty training- we were on again and off again until he was three and a half!- I wasn't eager to start training our daughter.  But, she has a problem with holding her pee in all day.  I've been concerned about bladder infections, etc... The doctor suggested that maybe our daughter is ready to potty train.  Ha!  Both of my kids love(d) diapers and were not willing participants to graduating to big kid pants.  I will say, M is doing well overall. We've only been training for three days now.  She's peed in the toilet twice, in her pants three times.  Pooped in her pants three times, none in the toilet yet.  Mostly, she pees in her night time diaper when she's asleep.  We don't put the diaper on her until she's sleeping though.  The girl just doesn't go often...which makes it easy on clean up, but she's not getting much practice.  Today was a complete failure, no potty victories but I really don't care. Wish I'd been this easy going with our son!   My new philosophy on potty training is: it's not so much about the kid as it is about the parents being willing to persevere.

Oh, I have to add a P.S....We are having great success with her sleeping through the night now!  She's moved from the floor to her mattress.  Somehow, she's learned how to sleep more calmly and doesn't thrash around and end up falling off her bed or crashing into the wall.  Hallelujah!  We are now getting some much needed rest.

Potty Training Graduation

So, I feel like we've had enough success to claim that our son has graduated from potty training.  He's now taking himself to the bathroom and getting it done.  Then he washes his hands too!  Having only one child in diapers is so awesome.  By the way, we're still doing some rewards for using the potty.  Not sure when we'll phase that out, but I think it will happen soon.

Potty Training 201

Hey fellow moms!  How's it going?  We are in the midst of potty training here.  Our son is doing well, although he's still not a willing party to this process.  He'd rather not be bothered with stopping to use the potty.  However, he is sometimes voluntarily going to the bathroom on his own.  Otherwise, we're using a 15 minute timer and insisting that he visit the toilet every half hour.  9 times out of 10, he needs to pee when he gets there.  When he pees in the toilet, he gets a star on his chart, and a peanut m&m.  If he wet his pants before getting to the bathroom, he doesn't get the m&m.  He's averaging about 10-12 m&m's a day!  The pooh thing is still a challenge for him.  However, he was successful two days ago, and we all made a huge deal about it.  (We even called the grandparents to tell them the good news!  Ha ha!!)  He loves the praise and the positive attention.  If he poohs in the toilet, he gets to watch a movie.  If not, no movie at all during the day.  He loves movies, that's why I chose that reward.  Apparently, it's not motivation enough as he went without a movie yesterday and today.  Last time we seriously worked on potty training-he was 2 1/2 then- the not poohing thing really bothered me.  I got very worried and pressured him too much to just go!!  This time around, I'm too busy cleaning baby M's diapers.  He'll go when he needs to.  Having a second child has changed my attitude about some things.  I'm sure you moms have found that to be true too.

I hate potty training, but it's better than changing diapers for two kids all day, every day.  No matter what happens, we've sworn to K that he is never wearing diapers again.  Having that sort of resolve it making the process better for all of us, I think.  Last summer, we got to a point where we just gave up and went back to diapers.  He's too old for that now (42 months old!!), plus he's much more capable at dressing himself and getting off and on the toilet.  I'm hopeful that this potty training business will not be long and drawn out.

We checked out a few potty training books from the library.  Even though they are ridiculous to us, our son thinks they're great, and makes the process easier for him to accept.  Anybody have a favorite "learn how to potty" book they'd like to share, or other training tips that would be helpful to us and other moms?  Please leave your comments below.  Thanks!

Potty Training Update

Well, we're just not quite ready to potty train.  K is much more willing to use the toilet this time around, which is great.  However, he's not fully invested yet.  He'd rather play than stop to use the potty.  Honestly, I'm not ready to commit to it either.  We are about three weeks away from finding out when we'll travel to China for our next adoption.  Sometime in Dec. or Jan. we are going to be gone for a couple of weeks, and then home with a new baby.  I don't want to add potty training to the list of transitions when we get home.  However, if he wants to use the toilet we are all for it.  Yesterday he volunteered to use it a couple of times.  So awesome!  I think once we are somewhat settled in with his new sister, we'll give it serious attention.

The best thing I've learned from our trial with potty training is to not care so much about the outcome.  This summer, I was so insistent on it and didn't want to fail.  Now, I don't really care one way or the other as I know that eventually he'll get it.  Our son is a strong willed little guy.  When he wants to do something, he will.  So, we told him he's the boss of his own pee and pooh.  He likes the concept of being the boss of somebody, or something.  Now that he's the boss of his own potty needs, rather than being forced to bend to my will, we are all a lot happier.  Funny, in all the potty training manuals I read, nobody ever mentioned this.

More posts to follow as we make progress in this area...

Help! Potty Training, Again?!?

O.k. fellow moms, I need your advice about potty training.  We gave it a valiant effort this summer, but K just wasn't ready.  We went back to diapers and quit talking about it, figuring he'd let us know when he was ready.  Today he completely surprised us by declaring he needed to use the potty.  He did and then I gave him the option of underwear or diaper.  He chose underwear.  He did a great job in the morning of telling us that he needed to pee, and only had one accident on his way to the bathroom.  After nap, he still told us, but he was already peeing while he stood on the carpet.  He had three accidents in a row, sigh...  I don't know what to do at this point.  What worked for your kids, and what didn't?  How long did it take for them to truly be trained and not having daily accidents?  Did any of you go back and forth between diapers and potty training?  Thanks for your advice!