My unprofessional survival guide to potty training

She is wearing new attire these days...

-->

I thought potty training was going to be breeze. Why? Because I potty trained a ton of other kids working in a day care. But apparently, it’s a little easier when you aren’t in your house, you are not the one doing the laundry and there is someone who can come in and clean up the mess for you, and you are only doing for 8 hours of the day.

 Lesson learned life.

I read the books “potty train in a day”. I pinned all the pins, “How I potty trained my 18 month old in a day”. I thought, “I can do this, easy.” WRONG. But we did it, and we survived, of course I had to be given a nice big slice of humble pie before it happened.  My pin description wouldn’t be so awesome as the 18 month old, mine would say “how I potty trained my 28 month old in 6 weeks and kept my sanity”

My tools for the successful potty training:

~Potty Books

~Candy lots of it

~A potty chart

~A timer

~ Big kid underwear

~A beverage and treat of your choice (this is for you to keep your sanity)

~Low expectations or none at all

-->

 (This one is a long one)

I noticed when I was trying to do the one day potty training method I was turning into the mother I never wanted to be. I would yell get frustrated and it would end in tears (the Miss’ and mine). I finally admitted this wasn’t going to work. The method doesn’t fit me. So we took a break.

I received the second best advice from my grandmother. As I was on the phone with her telling her my problems with potty training she said, “Julie she doesn’t care about wetting her pants she has done it for 2 years. Get about 10 pairs of underwear and as soon as she goes in them take them off right away and put dry ones on eventually she will start liking how it feels to be dry.” Seems easy enough?

Want to know the best advice I received? Again from my grandmother. As we finished the conversation my Nanny said to me, “Don’t forget they didn’t build Rome in a day.” To which I said, “Well according to Pinterest they did and when they are 18 months!” There was a second of silence and my Nanny said, “Well, that’s just bull$@*!” Best advice ever.

Once I accepted it wouldn’t happen in a day, I have to say it went much better and smoother than I ever thought possible.

If you would like to know you can keep reading.

First, I bought some potty books off of amazon. Once they arrived I stopped changing the Miss on the changing table. I moved her diapers etc into the bathroom. Every change took place in the bathroom, and she would sit on her little potty. I didn’t care if she went, in fact she never ever went in the potty. I did this for a month. We would read the potty books in the bathroom while she sat on the potty.

After a month we went to the store and I let her pick out her big kid “unnies”. Then one week we had nothing scheduled we began. That Monday morning I put her in her big kid unnies. Also I bought one of those toddler toilet inserts as well so in case we were upstairs she could use that instead of dragging her little potty. Well, guess what? She loved it so much that on the Saturday before we began I showed her it she got excited and sat on it and actually went! She never sat on her little potty again.

That morning we had about 6 accidents. The beverages and treat of your choice are for those moments. She would go in her pants I would take a swig of my diet coke and down a Reece’s peanut butter cup and say, “Okay let’s change”. All with amazing enthusiasm. 

The first three says were the hardest. And really it was exhausting. I would set my timer for every 30 minutes and make her sit on her potty. She hated getting on it every time because it was excessive but I used bribery. (As I was talking to another mother about this she looked at me and said, “I don’t use treats or any bribery for potty training. We just sing a song.” [insert eye roll]. If I spoke my mind I would have said, “Good for you, wanna cookie? Oh, you aren’t into that sorta thing.” But I don’t, I just give the i-am-tolerating-you-smile and pretend nothing happened). Also we only stayed in the kitchen because it has tile floors – easier clean up. We watched a lot of movies, coloring, puzzles, dancing etc.

After three days she was getting a hang of the potty. I could go longer about 45 – hour between the sittings on the potty. By Friday, she was coming to us and telling us she needed to go – the beverage of choice and treats are for those moments too when you can pat your self on your back. Take a swig and say “Yeah, I am awesome”. Don’t worry your own offspring will bring you back down to reality when they have an accident 20 minutes later.  We also did a sticker chart. The Miss loves stickers so she loved getting to put a sticker on her chart after she used the potty.

By the next week we were able go out. She was staying dry through out the night and naps (However, for my own sake I would put her in a diaper – you know just in case).

So that’s that. My unprofessional survival guide to potty training.

 Oh, and what does she get for being potty trained? Her very own bike. She has wanted one for soooo long.