Potty Trained!
Time for a better-late-than-never, wordy post.
When we took Natalie to her 2½ year well-visit in July, Dr. Stephen encouraged us to begin potty training since Natalie appeared ready and because it would be helpful to have potty training established before baby #2 arrived. We knew that Natalie was ready but had been dragging our feet. Labor Day weekend seemed like a good time to start since we could hole up at home for three days. We planned on taking diapers away entirely and expected a lot of accidents until Natalie got the hang of things.
But the weekend before labor day, Natalie decided that she was done with diapers and wanted to wear pretty underwear instead. Although we weren’t fully prepared (we only had a few pairs of underwear and no potty training books or videos as we had planned) we decided to follow Natalie’s lead. I ran out to stock up on underwear and stickers and tattoos for rewards.
The first day went as expected: lots of accidents! She actually got the hang of pooping on the potty fairly quickly, but had some trouble with peeing. My suspicion is that the diapers are so incredibly absorbent that Natalie had no clue what it even felt like to pee. At one point during the first day, she angrily said, “HEY!!! These underwears keep peeing on me!!!”
Luckily, it didn’t take very long for Natalie to make the connection that she could control the peeing. After a week or so, she was making it to the potty most of the time. She would mostly have accidents if she was too distracted by something fun to stop and use the potty. She was successful with the potty at Melissa’s and while out and about too. And she was covered in temporary tattoos! At some point we had to start putting tattoos on the tops of her feet because there was no space left on her arms.
But then she started resisting sitting on the potty, especially to poop. At first, we used upped the rewards….every time she produced something on the potty, she could have a lollipop. One day while Meema was watching her, she went to the potty twice in quick succession and asked excitedly, “After my pee lollipop, can I have a poop lollipop?”
I was worried that we’d never be rid of the lollipops, but we were able to phase them out fairly easily. First, I started setting some limits, like no lollipops after dinner, then she only got lollipops for pooping, then only for keeping her underwear clean and dry for the whole day. It wasn’t long before she stopped asking for lollipops altogether. But for a while, she looked like this much of the time:
Sometime in the fall, Natalie started regressing in terms of pooping. I’ll spare you all the gory details, but we finally realized that every fall, Natalie starts struggling with constipation, probably because we are eating less fresh fruit. Unfortunately, constipation quickly turns into a vicious cycle for kids as they start withholding because they associate pooping with pain. For Natalie it also caused a lot of problems with potty training.
We tried a few different interventions (including miralax) and finally settled on what seems to be the best solution: cutting down on milk, pushing more fruit, and sitting in the bathroom, telling stories and/or reading books with Natalie for a long time before she actually goes.
After a few rough months, we seem to be settled into a good, regular schedule and Natalie has been virtually accident-free. We’ve noticed that she is much more likely to wake up at night (sometimes crying) if she hasn’t pooped that day, so sitting on the potty for 15-30 minutes has been incorporated into our bedtime routine most nights. Makes us wonder if constipation has been at the root of her sleep problems all along.
Overall, the experience was positive, and Natalie is very proud of herself for learning this new skill. Dr. Stephen was right to encourage us to accomplish this before the new baby arrives. One because it would be difficult to devote the amount of attention the process took whilst caring for an infant. And two because it’s one of the ways that Natalie identifies herself as a “big girl” because “only babies wear diapers.” We are so proud of our big girl, too!
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Miranda is ADORABLE!! Reminds me so much of Natalie as a baby and I see Amy in her face too! Hugs to all! We are thinking of you!
Sorry, I think I put my comment in the wrong spot, can you fix it??? I can’t figure out how to fix it….