Potty training so far...

Well, it has been an interesting and tiring three days. If you don't have a toddler, you will probably be very bored with this post, so feel free to skip it.

As far as the 3-day training program goes, I would say that she is potty trained during the day at home. We have not tried using a potty at another location yet and we are definitely not waking up dry in the morning. Overall, we have come a LONG way but I still feel like we have a ways to go before we are flexible enough to leave the house when we want to be somewhere at a specific time.

When I started PT on Thursday morning, Elise had never peed or pooped on the potty (and didn't even want to sit on it). She started asking to pee on the potty by Thursday afternoon, and since then, we have only had two daytime accidents. However, we've been focusing so much on PT that it has been hard to stick to her normal schedule and we've had some other issues crop up that may or may not be related to the potty training. She used to be SO easy to put down for a nap or for bedtime, but now she screams, climbs out of her crib, and bangs on the door while asking to go to the potty (whether she has just gone or not). We finally put Jack's mattress on the floor and now we can give her the choice of sleeping in her crib or on the floor. (Thanks, Mom, for ordering it last week. I bet you didn't think we'd be using it this soon!) Then we lock the door and eventually she goes to sleep. That may sound cruel, but we do have a video monitor that allows us to make sure that she isn't going to hurt herself. There is no way that we are going to start a bad habit of laying down with her until she falls asleep or something else of that sort... I can't imagine trying to break that habit with an older child! So, for right now, locking the door and watching the monitor until she lays down is the best option. Thankfully, she still sleeps through the night and takes a good nap. Hopefully the "putting to bed" process will get back to normal very soon. The same thing happened in mid-January and she was back to normal a few days later.

I got off topic... Here's what happened for those who are curious or who might be doing PT in the near future. We went cold turkey and are using only panties, even for naps and nighttime.

Thursday - Day 1:

7:30 - wake up - announced that she had pooped and peed in her diaper

7:45 - breakfast

8:00 - throw away all diapers and put on panties

9:45 - first accident - peed and announced "I pee pee" as she did it - picked her up and ran to potty

9:55 - second accident - pooped (and I wasn't next to her because I was cleaning up the first accident, so we ran to the potty but she was already done)

10:45 - third accident - pee - picked her up and ran to potty

11:40 - "I need a diaper. I need a diaper. I will pee pee later."

11:55 - She went in her room and searched in her closet for diapers (thankfully, I had hidden the one unopened package in my closet so that she wouldn't see it!)

12:05 - says she needs to pee pee and has a few drops in panties but doesn't go in the potty... gets a sticker for keeping panties dry

12:15 - fourth accident - put down for a nap - climbs out of crib, runs to the door and pees

12:20 - after changing her clothes, she says "Put me back in crib Mommy" and goes to sleep

3:00 - starts stirring from nap - rush in to get here and she is dry! gets a graham cracker

3:15 - says she needs to pee and does a little dribble in panties but nothing in potty - paces back and forth from living room to bedroom to bathroom and asks to sit on the potty about 10 times 3:30 - she pees on the potty for the first time! gets a graham cracker. calls daddy and the grandparents.

7:30 - pees on the potty after pacing for about an hour and asking to sit on the potty at least 25 times (I am amazed that she held it for 4 hours... even with increased liquid consumption!)

*Doesn't pee again before bed but asks a million times to go... figured out that "Mommy, I really have to go pee pee (or poop)" works as an excuse to not go to bed - finally decided on no more trips to the potty and shut her in the room - she went to sleep on mattress on the floor around 8:45 pm (7-7:15 is a normal bedtime)

Friday - Day 2:

3:30 am - I woke up and checked her - wet - changed her and put her back to bed - did not want to sit on potty

7:15 am - starts stirring - rush in to get her and she is wet

9:45 am - pees on potty after 15-20 trips to the bathroom (started asking to go around 9)

11:15 am - pees on her 4th trip to the potty (HUGE breakthrough!)

12:30 pm - repeat of yesterday's nap issue - pees on the floor by the door (this is after going to the potty many, many times before the nap)

3:45 pm - wake her up from nap - dry

4:15 pm - pees on 2nd trip to potty!

7:00 pm - pees on 2nd trip to potty!

7:20 pm - in bed... screams for about 5 minutes at the door and then goes to sleep on her mattress on the floor

Saturday - Day 3:

6:45 am - starts stirring - rush in to get her - wet

9:45 am - pees AND poops on the potty on the 4th or 5th trip

11:30 am - randomly pees on the floor while I am at the gym - we are shocked that she didn't ask Mike to go to the potty since she's asked me every single time since Thursday afternoon and even walks into the bathroom by herself

12:45 pm - put down for a nap in crib

1:30 pm - still awake 45 minutes later so I went to take her to the potty and she peed on the first try, yay! fights going back to bed and sleeps on mattress on the floor

4:00 pm - wake her up from nap - dry

5:15 pm - pee on 3rd trip to potty

5:30 - 6:30 pm - first time leaving the house via car... kept panties dry

7:15 pm - start the nightmarish nighttime process again... we took her out of her room and to the bathroom every 10-15 minutes since it had been so long since she had last peed

9:00 pm - finally pees and then goes to sleep in the crib - will be interesting to see if she can hold it for the rest of the night.

My thoughts:

1) We are happy that, when she needs to during the day, she asks to pee and poop on the potty and does so on the 2nd or 3rd trip to the bathroom (compared with the 25th trip on night #1!) She has come a long way in just 3 days!

2) We are frustrated that she can't yet "pee on command" and won't go on the potty until she really needs to go. Until she is able to make herself go before her nap, bedtime, and before leaving the house, this will be a big challenge.

3) We are happy that she wakes up dry from her naps.

4) We are frustrated with the "Little Boy Who Cried Wolf" issue at naptime and bedtime.

5) We are happy that she doesn't not want to wear a diaper anymore - right before she peed tonight I was going to put a cloth diaper on her since I knew she would pee shortly after going to sleep and then be wet the whole night... but she refused to put the diaper on and asked for her panties again. A few minutes later, she sat on the potty and peed and is now asleep in the crib.

6) We are happy that she is very proud of herself when she goes on the potty and wants to do it.

Sooooo, the bottom line is, I am VERY glad that we are doing this now instead of after Jack comes. It takes a lot of time and effort and right now, I can devote all my attention to her. We will stick it out and I am hopeful that in the next few days, she will figure out how to go on the potty before naps/bedtime/leaving the house. At that point, I don't think we'll have the "going to bed" issues because she will have already peed on her own. The author of the e-book recommends potty-training around 22 months, and I think we might have been able to avoid some of the other issues if we had started at that point. On the other hand, at 25 months, she understands more than she did at 22 months and was naturally going longer stretches between peeing. Who knows? By the end of the week, if she isn't able to go all night without peeing, I will look into some cloth training pants to use for overnight panties. The e-book recommends waking them at night to take them to the potty (if they are waking up wet) and not using diapers/pullups/training pants, but I don't want to do anything to interfere with her (or us) sleeping through the night, especially with a baby coming in about 2 months.

I'm sure that I have other thoughts but I am way too tired to try to organize them. We're going to take her to the church nursery for one service tomorrow and see how she does. I'll do another post later this week with more thoughts and updates.