Disclaimer: First of all, I decided to potty train my baby at 22 months because 1. Her verbal skills have rocketed up the roof and she can understand nearly everything I tell her. 2. I don't want to change diapers anymore. A lot of people wait to potty train till later, and that's fine. Some people would even say I brought this potty training stress upon myself. I bring a lot of things upon myself.
After reading a lot online about the 3-day bare-bottom potty training method, I decided to give it a go. I was all geared up with a pink princess potty that sang when you peed in it, and a booklet of Sesame Street stickers. I read "Once Upon a Potty" to my girl for the sixth or seventh time - on her insistence - and had a talking with her about no more diapers. Her eyes twinkled with wisdom and understanding, we were ready to take the plunge.
Day 1's Pee Pee Log
10:00 a.m. The diaper comes off.
We visit the potty every 30 minutes, but in the meantime she runs around like a hippie, and I follow her around, my heart pounding.
11:00 a.m. She pees a drop on the floor and comes to me saying: "Uh, oh! Pee pee." I whisk her off to the potty and she lets lose 1 cup. Her face lights up when she hears the potty sing, and I clap like a crazy person. She says, "again?" So far, enthusiasm is high. We get a sticker and she proudly presses it to her shirt.
11:22 a.m. As I'm brushing my teeth, she comes and says, "Uh oh, pee pee come out!" She leads me to the wet splatter next to her play table. It's not too much, but more than a drop. I direct her to the potty where she let's lose another cup. Another sticker. We clean up her splatter together.
11:40 a.m. She has another piddle in front of the bird cage. I lead her to the potty and she releases what's left. She is racking up the stickers. Meanwhile, I text my husband the progress and he replies, "She pees more than I do!"
12:00 p.m. She has her first real accident right on her toy train tracks. It required a big towel for that one. We go to the potty but it seems like she's really emptied out this time. It's just been two hours since I took off her diaper and I'm already exhausted from all the work we've done. I wonder where she gets all her pee from.
1:45 p.m While playing in the tubberware drawer, she stands up and starts to cross her legs. My hawk eyes (or elven eyes) notice and we run to the potty where she releases her first big pee. I say first big pee because it gushed out and even shot out of the potty with force. I'm so happy! It seems like my troubles are behind me.
2:50 p.m. Another big pee pee accident. Some got on the corner of the rug.
3:30 p.m. Another big pee accident. She was wearing big girl panties and playing in the sandbox outside when pee started to run down her leg. She cried out and I tried to get her to move away from the sandbox. We were too far from the potty, so we just sort of watched as the pee soaked her panties and puddled in her crocs. It was depressing. Why didn't she just tell me she needed to go?
4:12 p.m. After eating chicken nuggets, I set her on her potty for a routine potty run. She grimaces. Suddenly poo and diarreah shoot out and cake the inside of the potty. I'm elated and disgusted. I feel the same way a pedestrian feels when a bus just misses them on the road. Rosie is interested in her brown creation. She is also getting better at washing her hands.
4:45 p.m. I prompted her to go potty and she went pee. We are down to a routine.
5:20 p.m. Took her to the potty again, and she went pee again. She is losing interest in the stickers, so sometimes after peeing and washing her hands, she just runs off and plays.
I stopped the pee log at that time because my husband came home from work. He was impressed with her progress but didn't like the bare-bottomness of it all, so we went to get pull-up diapers to use in the future. Now here is the real question: Will pull-ups be a benefit or a hinderance to this process? We'll find out. But in the meantime, here is something I've learned:
- My kid was enthusiastic at first, so the first day was critical. I fed off the newness of it. This is when she was most receptive.
- My kid can't really tell when she needs to go. She's busy with playing, with running, with eating. So while I trained her to release her bowels when I manually bring her to the potty, I have a long way to go in training her to recognize her body signals and go to the potty beforehand.
Here's to that long road ahead. If you don't hear from me in awhile, you can just assume something or someone has backfired.
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