October 21, 2013 was a momentous day in our house. Meili went three days without having an accident, and got the coveted Rapunzel doll.
Potty training is a big deal in any household, but as my life goes, I think it was even harder than it should be. And now that I have potty trained (as I'm saying this I am crossing my fingers that she is actually potty trained, and there isn't some huge event, that sends her reverting right back) I will share all I know about potty training for all those who are wondering...
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There. That's it. That's all I know about potty training-absolutely nothing.
I worked with parents for years, talking to them about potty training, and answering their questions. And this is how it usually went: they mentioned that they wanted to potty train their child, I would go over a checklist of how to know if your child is ready, then I would bring them a cute personalized potty chart, and a week later their child was potty trained-end of story. Well, now I know that either they were lying when they made everything sound so easy, or their is something "different" about either me or my child, because that was not life in our house.
Here's how it went in our house (and I guess I'm keeping record of this so that I can show Meili in years to come, how much she OWES me, or maybe so that I can give hope to some other parent who is also dealing with a "different" child, or maybe just because this was such a big deal in our lives for such a long time, and I am so proud that we made it through to the other side.)
In February, (yeah, you heard me, February!) I decided that Meili wasn't necessarily ready but she was probably capable of being potty trained. She had the verbal ability, and patience to sit on the potty for several minutes at a time etc. However, it didn't necessarily bother her when she had a dirty diaper, and she didn't tell me when she had to go etc. But I thought I would just introduce the concept. She got a potty chair in October a year ago, and we had checked out a couple books from the library. So I printed up a chart and decided that we would just sit on the potty at regular times everyday. I had heard that once kids were successful once, for a lot of them it just clicked. I bought pull-ups, and she got to put a sticker on the chart every time she tried, and a prize every time she was successful. On day 2, I believe we had 3 successes-and I was so excited, and was imagining Meili being the easiest child in the world to potty train. We also got her a Rapunzel barbie and told her that if she had a dry diaper for 3 days (not including naps or bedtime) then she would get the Rapunzel doll. On day 3, Meili started to fight me. I had already decided that I was not going to turn potty training into a battle. If she wasn't "ready" then I wasn't going to make her hate going potty-it wasn't worth it.
So I took a step back, talked to a few people, and had several people say "I don't think my kids ever would have potty trained in diapers."
Ah ha! So that was the key. The next week, I bought underwear and we tried again. And we had A LOT of accidents. So I started setting the timer, and we would sit on the potty every 30 minutes. And every 29 minutes-we had an accident. So, instead, I set the timer for every 20 minutes, and every 19 minutes we had an accident. We also tried diaper covers, which may as well be renamed "useless covers."
Obviously the problem was that she didn't recognize the "urge," so I took a step back again.
The number one thing I had talked with parents about was consistency, so I hated the idea of going back and forth, but it just wasn't clicking, and more than hating going back and forth, I hated making Meili feel bad for something that she just truly didn't understand.
Over the next couple of months, it seemed like things did start clicking though. Every time I was getting Meili ready for a bath, she told me that she needed to go potty, and she did-so apparently she could recognize the urge. So over a matter of months, we tried every so often for about a week, and then life would start back up again, and we couldn't continue having accidents because we had to leave the house.
Obviously it wasn't for a lack of trying that Meili wasn't potty trained. These are the attempts that we actually remembered the sticker, but that doesn't even begin to describe how much time was spent in the bathroom. And she also had A LOT of successes. Off the top of my head, I know that she got 7 princesses, 6 rings, 4 notebooks, 6 stamps, 6 nail polishes, 4 trucks, 3 bracelets and the list goes on and on. So with so much trying, and so much success, I couldn't understand why we weren't progressing. And Meili was trying-she was a trooper, and I felt as bad for her that it wasn't clicking as I did for myself.
Again, I had friends who said that they waited until their kids were BEGGING to be potty trained, and that worked for them. So I decided that the idea had to come from Meili, and she needed to want it herself. I didn't mention anything about potty training for a couple months, and Meili would decide every once in awhile that she wanted to try or that she wanted to wear underwear, but I just didn't push it. I also decided that it would be easier if I just made peace with that fact that Meili was probably not ever going to be potty trained. I take that back, I promised that as my gift to her future husband, I would have her potty trained before she got married-but that was really the only guarantee I could make.
Around August, it seemed like she was more ready but we were going to San Francisco, and I didn't want to get her potty trained just in time for us to go on vacation, so I decided that when we got back, we would kick it back into full gear.
However, we had been trying for so long, that I decided we needed a new system. She didn't necessarily care about the prizes anymore, and there were so many stickers on her chart that they were meaningless. So I thought that she needed something that mattered to her. We had tried saying that she couldn't watch TV until she went potty, and she kind of cared about that but she would eventually get distracted with a different activity. So my new system was this: I made a chart of her very favorite things to do at the time, and figured that each activity would take about a half an hour. So if she went potty, she picked an activity, and when we were done with that activity, we would try again, and she would could pick again. If she tried but wasn't successful, she got to pick a treat to keep her motivated. And we did that ALL day long for 4 days straight. Keep in mind that every activity, I did with her. So we were side by side ALL DAY LONG, because I also decided that what she would like more than anything would be lots of attention. However, doing a different activity every half an hour for 4 days is exhausting-especially when you are 19ish weeks pregnant, and it meant that work, housework, hobbies, everything got put on hold. So anyone who says that I didn't want Meili to be potty trained bad enough, can try that system for themselves, and then tell me that. We also went back to pull-ups, because I decided that I could keep going a lot longer if I didn't need to clean up so many accidents. I didn't keep track very well, but I know that on Day 2 we had 14 successes, and 3 accidents. And we just kept with it as much as possible. (Obviously weekends would get harder, or when I absolutely had to work, and she had someone watching her etc.) But we just kept with it... for a month and a half. Now, you would think that for most kids if they had 14 successes in one day (not to mention that she did for days on end) that they would eventually get it. Plus, Meili was motivated. She wanted her Rapunzel doll, she was willing to sit on the potty countless times a day for months on end. But it still wasn't sticking.
(I don't know why this is still crooked. I rotated it, and it doesn't look like this is IPhoto.) Meili's choices were going on a bike ride, Little Einstein's, painting, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, PlayDoh, pick a movie, a picnic, a tea party, bubbles, and going for a walk in the stroller.
Then the middle of October, for whatever reason, it seemed like she got so close, but would still consistently have one accident a day. She went 2 and a half days without an accident, and then pooped (sorry-gross) and it was within 5 minutes of me asking her if she needed to go potty. UGH! I was so mad! I tried to be so positive about potty training all along, but after that, I almost started crying! I think I wanted the Rapunzel doll more than she did. We were going to my parents' house the next day, and I was so bummed that we had finally made so much progress, and now she was going to regress because we'd be so far off our normal routine.
However, from then on, she stayed dry! She stayed dry through driving to Bountiful, and through going to Gardner Village, and through going to my nephew's birthday party, and through all the craziness of playing with her cousins. She even came to me in the middle of the birthday party and told me she had to poop. I also could have cried then. (Tears of joy.) But I didn't. Instead, I just shared the news with my entire family. (Sorry about that as well.)
So that Monday, we got the long-awaited prize: the Rapunzel doll. There is no question that I was more excited than she was.
I was so nervous that once she had the doll, the motivation would be gone, and we'd have to start over again, but she has done AWESOME! For the most part she wakes up from naps, and bed dry as well, and has only had one true accident-which Josh blames himself for.
Ahhh.... Let's all breathe a collective sigh of relief, and pray for many more dry days ahead! (and that we can enjoy no diapers in our house for at least a couple months.)
