Potty Training
If you follow me on Instagram, you know we tried to potty train Everly right after Rosie was born at 19 months old. I'm honestly not sure what we were thinking, she couldn't even say potty and we had our hands full with a newborn. All I knew is that I didn't want to have to change two diapers anymore. Well after 3 days of intense potty training - running her to the toilet every time she peed, reminding her constantly to tell us if she had to pee, her peeing her pants like 10 times the first day, and then purposefully peeing to get my attention when I was feeding Rosie - we decided she maybe wasn't ready. I was so bummed that we "failed" and really didn't want to put her back in diapers, but I didn't have many options as Jason was heading back on the road and I only have so many hands. We threw in the towel for the time being and aimed for potty training her at 2 years old.
Well her 2nd birthday came and went and I kept telling myself that "this is the last box of diapers I am buying for her". Well eventually my mom and Jason started bugging me saying, so how many more boxes until we try? Well one week I had been playing with Everly a lot outside, and she would often be naked in the backyard and I noticed that she started telling me when she had to pee or poo, and I would take her in to the potty. After a few days of this I realized that she was ready. Everyone says to not leave the house for 3 days, but like how do you do that in summer?? I just couldn't, and realized I would potty train even while leaving the house, and it worked!
We just spent the weekend away in Buffalo for a friends wedding and she had no accidents, so I'm going to say she's basically trained. I still remind her to go anytime we leave the house, and I'll likely keep doing this for awhile. I'm sure we'll get random accidents here and there going forward, but it seriously feels so good to only have one kid in diapers and to not have to worry about it anymore!
The biggest reason I didn't want to potty train was because Everly sleeps in SO long and naps forever, and I know that's partly due to the fact that she can lay there and pee in her diaper. If she had to start getting up when she had to pee I'm sure she'd be up at the crack of dawn. Well after chatting with some friends I realized I could do daytime training first, and worry about night time training another time. I decided this was the route I wanted to take.
These are the general "rules" we have been following in potty training this time around.
Tell her to go to the potty, don't ask. We take her first thing in the morning when she wakes up, before we leave the house, once we get somewhere, whenever we leave somewhere, before naptime and before bed. Or anytime that it's been awhile. I think this helped a TON because it wasn't stressful or panicky, it was planned and calm. After two days of me telling her, she started telling me. It was perfect! I still ask her before we leave the house or if she hasn't gone in awhile, but now when we're out shopping, or at the grocery store or the park she'll usually tell me she has to pee. She has no problem going anywhere (we even had to pop a squat in the grass the other day when we were on a walk!).
Watch her like a hawk the first few days. I started seeing cues for when she had to pee, and especially poo. She still doesn't love pooing on the toilet so she tries to hold it in. She did have one poo accident which was SO GROSS. Learning their cues can help you help them know when to get onto the potty. Like I said, I did leave the house with her, but I was always prepared with a change of clothes and panties in case she had an accident. She only had 2 peeing accidents right in the beginning, and it was when she was distracted doing something else.
The first few days she was naked on the bottom half (unless we left the house, then we put panties and bottoms on her), that way she could feel the second she had a little accident.
Once she mastered being naked, I put panties on her all the time and bottoms.
I took our potty with us in the car for longer rides. She told me on the way to the cottage that she had to pee so I pulled over on to the side of the road and she peed in her potty.
We didn't do any rewards or bribes this time, but we got so excited every time she went on the potty and did a little dance.
After she peed on the potty, she wiped, dumped her little potty bowl into the toilet, flushed it and then washed her hands. I think she liked the routine of this. Some kids I'm sure would be annoyed or overwhelmed, but Ev liked the responsibility of cleaning up her little potty and I think it made it more exciting to go.
Since we started training a few weeks ago I can count on one hand the amount of accidents she's had. She did so much better this time around, which is probably why they say wait until your kid is ready! We got our potty from Target in the States and it is amazing. It plays a song every time she pees in it, which is exciting for her and great for me. Sometimes now she wants privacy while she pees and will close the door, but I can still hear if she's gone pee.
Waiting until Everly was 24-months was the best for us, because now Rosie is 7-months and doesn't need as much attention. I'm not sure when we'll do nighttime training, but probably when she starts waking up with dryer pull-ups. We don't do diapers overnight or for naps anymore, we do pull-ups so they feel like panties, because we told her that her diapers are all gone now. We call them her night-time panties, and she seems fine with the transition from day to night. I will keep you posted when we start to do nights!
Best,
Stacey