Natalie & Ryan: Potty Training

With every stage of parenting that I go through, I always think to myself, "ugh, this is the worst!" I thought having a mobile baby was hard. I thought switching to a toddler bed and getting Lilly to stay in bed for nap time was the worst. But now, I'm confident that I can say, we are in the WORST stage of parenting. Potty training!!

We'd been putting it off and not putting our 100% into it, and agreed that it was time to give it our best. And by "we," I mean "me," since Ryan's at work all day. I was ready to take on this task by myself....or so I thought. We stocked Lilly up on big girl panties, and figured jumping in was the best way. For the first week, she was a little pee machine! She understood that we wanted her to pee on the potty and not in her panties, but she didn't know how to control it. She'd say "I'm pooping!" (in her mind, she meant "peeing"), so we'd rush her over to the potty, only to discover that she'd already peed in her panties. I'd let her sit on the potty for a bit, to try and encourage her to finish, and then let her off, only to have her immediately pee in her pants.We'd follow that routine for about an hour before she didn't have anymore pee left. It was beyond frustrating. The first few days, we actually used all 20 or so pairs of panties that we had. Everything was covered in pee!! Laundry in this house has exploded!

I'll be the first to admit that I was starting to feel hopeless. Lilly turned into such a little demon child for the first week. She knew she needed to pee on the potty. She knew she was wearing panties and didn't like to be wet. But getting her to react BEFORE anything happened was impossible....and still is. Ryan could see how hard it was, just in the few hours that he was home each night, and tried to convince me to stop and wait a while. I put my foot down and insisted that I finish. I'd been through one week of hell, and there was no way I was going to give up. At some point, that light at the end of the tunnel had to come, and I was determined to get there. For the first time in my life, I was going to finish something difficult!

Well, it's been two weeks since we started. We don't use diapers, only pull-ups for nap time and night time diapers for the night. Other than that, we've come quite far. At first, she would cry and freak out when she started to pee (after 30 minutes of sitting on the potty), but now, when we put her on the potty, she pees immediately, and excitedly says "I'M PEEING!!!" We can be on and off the potty in 30 seconds on a good day. In the two weeks of potty training, we have yet to have a poop in the pants. Thank goodness! She's been really good at pooping on the potty. We've actually had several days of wearing the same ONE pair of panties all day, with no accidents. My mom went out and bought her a big toy as reward for the first time she made it all day without an accident. I would say my biggest tip to anyone potty training, is to be over-excited for accomplishments and BRIBE, BRIBE, BRIBE! Telling her that if she pees on the potty, she can have a marshmallow or a present, works like a charm.

Our goals right now are getting her to go to her potty by herself BEFORE she pees her pants, and getting her to be able to pull her pants up and down by herself. It's not perfect yet, but I think we've rounded the corner, and I can FINALLY see that light at the end of the tunnel. I told Ryan that if I can manage to potty train her, I want a trophy. No joke. Any parent having to go through this deserves some sort of award. Wish us luck!!

Ladies and gentlemen, this is demon Lilly. For a while, she would SCREAM at me if I put her on the potty. This specific instance was brought on by the fact that I turned off the TV and told her she was in timeout, since she was being mean to mommy, and she decided to have a meltdown.

The first day of potty training. She didn't want to wear panties at first, so my head got the most panty usage for the first bit.

First day. I downloaded an Elmo Potty Training app.

This is what we do most of the day. We have the Disney Princess potty down in my mom's office, and the Abby potty upstairs. She won't sit on an adult potty yet. Doesn't she look so bored?!