It Worked for Me!
I had, what I would consider, a rather easy time potty training my two year old daughter. I've been asked to share my success story so many times, I thought it would be helpful to make a lens about my experiences!
Now, I'm well aware that I've only potty trained one child and that my child was a girl. I'm no "expert." This is just my story about what worked for me and I'm sharing it in hopes that you will find some ideas to try in your own potty training adventures! We now have a boy who's a year old, so in a while I'll be able to test my theories on him, too. I'll keep you posted on that one.
In the meantime, good luck! You're gonna need it...
How it all Began...
Feeling absolutely sick and tired of spending so much money on disposable diapers, I headed off to the store one day to purchase a pack of Pull-Ups (disposable training pants). For over a year now we had been working on sitting on the potty, talking about going in the potty and trying to get Katie to tell us when she had to go. We weren't having any success these methods and we were felling like we were wearing her out, too.So, I wanted to try Pull-Ups. Once I had purchased a pack, we started to intensify the potty training sessions. We'd ask Katie about going to the potty more often. We told her that we don't go potty in our "Big Girl Panties." Still, we weren't having much success. Everyone was frustrated!
I almost gave up completely until I went on-line and found one little crucial piece of advice: Cloth diapered babies tend to potty train more quickly, for obvious reasons--they can't stand to be wet! That got me thinking...
My Resolution
So, after a very unsuccessful weekend of tossing out Pull-Up after Pull-Up, I made the commitment to--come what may--switch over to cloth training pants, all the time.This was intimidating for me, since we did not have our own washing machine at the time. But I resolved to just get over it and wash the pants out by hand, if need be. I wasn't going to give up because I was sure I had discovered our real problem: my daughter didn't know what was happening when she went potty because diapers and Pull-Ups were so good at their job of absorbing wetness.
Also at the same time as we made our training pant purchases, we also picked up some "Potty Chocolate." I think that these two things (the cloth and the candy) in conjunction did the trick. Within three days, she had gotten it down!
New Make A List
- Cloth Training Pants (which we called "underwear")
- Rubber Pants (to help with accidents)
- Disposable Training Pants (for overnights and outings)
- Peanut Butter M&Ms (Mmm, yum!)
- and/or Jelly Bellies.
One Important Detail
I don't know that we would have had the success that we had if it wasn't for one important little detail.When we first started with the "Potty Chocolate," we would give Katie an M&M for going to the bathroom. But that wasn't enough incentive on it's own and she continued to have accidents throughout the day.
Many times the problem was that she didn't give herself enough time to make it to the potty. So, we switched up the thing that we rewarded her for! We told her we would give her a chocolate for just saying "I have to go potty." That started a habit that has stuck with her to this day (she's now four and a half)! She'll loudly proclaim "I have to go potty!" each and every time. It's kinda funny...
And one last thing about the chocolate--once she got the potty concept down, we took away the chocolate (we actually enjoyed stealing away the bowl and devouring it all by ourselves). That's because we knew that if the potty chocolate went on for too long, she'd throw a fit when we took it away and we didn't want to create a problem. We gave her chocolate for about 5 days and then that was the end of the chocolate.
Also, about three months later Katie regressed (she had a lot of accidents) and we just happened to have some jelly beans on hand. A jelly bean or two helped to get her back on track again. But those sweet times can't last forever. Going potty is it's own reward, right? So are the Big Kid Pants.
Ah, sweet success!
New Amazon Plexo
And here's where you can find these items:
Gerber Training Pants
These are wonderful. Just not completely absorbent. Be sure to also pick up a pair of plastic pants!0 points
Gerber Vinyl/Plastic Pants
Works well to keep your floor nice and dry when accidents happen.0 points
Huggies Pull-Ups Boy's Training Pants
Buzz Lightyear Pull-Ups for boys!0 points
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Like this lens? Have any good advice? Feel free to leave a comment!
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Luckily we had a easy peasy time with Deacon and he was fully trained within a few days and out of nappies within a week. Once he 'went' on the potty he never ever used his nappies again. Kaylee on the other hand is a pain. I think we need some potty chocolate my friend. I'll see if it helps. LOL my security word is 'risktaker' how funny.
Posted September 19, 2008
I did almost the exact same thing with my son (22 months) and it took only 4 days for him to start telling us he had to go pee and then running to the potty...although I wish that I would have invested in the plastic training pants to go over his underwear, it would have saved me alot of time ane energy! The only other thing that i did when I was training him was to not leave the house or even go outside so that we were always in or around the same room as the potty. Consistency was the key! Also I had great help from husband who was righton board ith me!
Posted June 26, 2008
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MomLady
I wish I'd seen this before we started on my granddaughter. However, we ended up using Dreyer's Dibs for a reward, along with stickers. It's worked quite well. You're definitely on to something here. Posted April 30, 2008 |
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