Potty Training Success!

I will begin by exclaiming "POTTY TRAINING IS OFFICIALLY OVER WAHOOOOO!" It was quite an exciting 3 days for us and it is now complete. I am glad Eloise is only 3 months old because it will take me quite some time to regain the amount of energy needed to potty train another child : )

Potty Training in the Valentine Nest

First order of business, stocking up-

M & M's, check!
Lot's of undies, check!
A super cool potty, check!
3 extra exciting prizes, check!

I really wanted to wait until November to potty train Charlotte. In October, I will be flying to Texas alone with both girls & didn't want the added stress of using the potty but little Miss Charlotte had her own plan! About 3 weeks ago, Charlotte started freaking out everytime I would put a diaper on her. She would scream & say "owww! tight!" So, I thought maybe we needed to bump up a size which put us a size away from adult diapers : ) I brought home the size 6 diapers, put one on her & she went to bed. Problem solved, or so I thought! The next morning her diaper was off when she woke up & the bed was wet. Who new? Our child prefers to sleep in the nude! This was a developing trend with Char so after a few days of relentless screaming while the diaper was on or finding her naked with you know what everywhere we decided we were done with diapers. I cancelled anything that was on our schedule for 3 days in a row & planned to abide by the "rules" in my ebook.

About a year ago I heard about a friend from college who used the 3 Day Potty Training method with her 18 month old & had complete success. I figured that I would just check it out & see if it sounded like something I might be interested in. I definitely was interested after reading the reviews! Up until day 1 of potty training, Charlotte had never even sat on a potty. This is one of the many reasons I am still so surprised at our results. She was completely obsessed with wearing panties over her diaper though & at any given time she may have been found with up to 9 pairs on at a time. All that to say, I was as prepared as I could be when we began.

Here is how our 3 days went....

Day 1: We eat breakfast then take Charlotte's diaper off & make a big deal about it being thrown in the trash as the last diaper. She excitedly selects her first pair of panties to wear for the day. I show her the new potty & tell her to keep her panties dry & tell mommy when she needs to go potty. This method requires that you are pretty much within arms length of your child every moment they are awake for 72 hours so we begin playing with a puzzle together. I remind her frequently to let me know when she needs to go potty. I fill her sippy cup up with juice & keep it topped off through the day so there is lots that needs to come out : ) Within 20 minutes she starts to go which really surprises her. I scoop her up, carry her to the potty to finish the last little bit. We make a big deal out of the 3 drops that made it in. M & M & sticker are awarded to the beaming 2 year old. She then proceeds to run full speed into the living room & do 5 somersaults in a row. We just about died laughing, we had never even seen her do one somersault! Over the next 8 hours, we had about 40 false alarms & went through about 20 pairs of panties due to the not realizing what was happening. She skipped her nap on this day which made for a very grumpy & non compliant child. All day long I continued to scoop her up & get her to the potty to finish. We spent every moment together & at the end of the day she was saying "Go away Mommy." It kind of made me laugh. I am sure she was tired of me : ) We put her to bed in panties for the night. I was up late steam cleaning urine off of the floors & washing all the panties in preparation for another day.

Day 1 - one of the many false alarmsDay 2- She has one accident overnight which really upsets her & makes it difficult to go back to sleep therefore we enter day 2 a little sleep deprived. Day 2 is a repeat of day 1 at least for the first half. One thing that is frustrating throughout the morning is she lets her bladder get so full it hurts but won't sit down & let it empty all the way. After lunch was the very first time she recognized when she needed to go & ran as fast as she could to make it to her potty. She almost made it but emptied her bladder completely once she was there so it was a success. She gets a couple M &M's, a sticker & a Wonder Woman mini race car. She takes a nap for 3 hours & stays dry. She still has some accidents in the evening. By the end of this day, I am EXHAUSTED! I became ridiculously emotional after Charlotte was in bed. I did some crying & then some laughing at myself for being so out of control about potty training....all of this while steam cleaning the floors again.

Day 3- Charlotte wakes up dry after 11 hours of continuous sleep! The rest of the day starts with a bang when she lets her bladder get so full once again refusing to sit down on the pottty for more than 3 seconds. She is screaming, I am frustrated, Robby bursts out of his office. He tells me loudly that this is ridiculous, I have now gone from torturing my child to torturing him. (hahahaha) He says to move the potty to another bathroom so he can get some work done without a screaming 2 year old (and a crying 2 year olds' mother.) The conversation is tense. I tell him that I am so mad at him that I didn't want to talk to him or see him & to let me take care of Charlotte & the potty training. We laugh hysterically about the entire interaction later in the day but in that moment....there are no smiles : ) Shortly after this conversation I try to quit. I feel like I can't clean up one more accident on the floor. I ask Charlotte if she wants to wear a diaper. She starts screaming "nooooooooooo!" Within 10 minutes she says"tee-tee mommy" runs straight to the potty, sits down & goes! Dry panties for the rest of the day!

Day 3- adding a sticker to her Good Job Char poster next to the potty Some of the things I want to remember about potty training this funny girl:

How she says the names of the characters on her panties. "doh-wa"-Dora, "pin-cess"- princess, "be-ow"-Hello Kitty, "mee-ee"- Minnie Mouse.

Everytime she would sit down on the potty she would look up at the Good Job Char sign & say the letters outloud followed by the animal sounds of the stickers she had previously chosen.

She would lean over & read the letters (that were upside down) on her potty outloud "B-a-b-y B-j-o-r-n."

She had been such a stinker & would never count past 3 with me. While she was sitting on her potty & I was sitting in front of her she grabbed my toes & counted all the way to 10 without any help! She then smiled at me as if to say "Ha! Bet you didn't know I could do that!"

After going on the potty she would come out & report to the dogs. For example "Bee (Bennett) or Bah (Bella), I tee-tee paw-ee, ema- em (m&m) kee-ka (sticker), yes? big girl!"

How she remembered the exact 2 pairs that she had a poopie accident in & REFUSES to wear them saying "poopie mommy poopie!" even though I tell her I washed them & show her how clean they are.

Since being potty trained she wants to wear just panties & a shirt all day every day & it is a fight to get shorts on her

She was so proud of herself & we were proud of her too. Here she is next to her sign on Day 3. We are currently weaning her off "ema-ems" so the sign is now covered in stickers.

Here is my adorable little potty trained girl....How did you get so big Charlotte? She loves making silly faces at me when I am trying to take her picture.Overall, it was intense but the outcome is just unbelievable so I would have to recommend it. One tip, if you have a 3 month old baby, get someone else at your house to help! We are close to 2 weeks post potty training with zero daytime accidents & a few night time accidents. My favorite part, seeing her run around in her undies : )