Once Upon A Potty - Immersion Day 1

I mentioned in a previous post that I had several 'big girl' items for Blythe during her 20th month. The first one was going from the crib to the toddler bed which couldn't have been any easier. She seriously didn't skip a beat with nap time or bed time.

Blythe has been showing signs of being interested in potty training; 1) waking up from nap and bed time dry 2) telling us when her diaper is wet or soiled 3) the few times we let her run around in her birthday suit she either asked to sit on the potty or asked for a diaper.

I had big plans to start potty training boot camp last weekend, but what can I say, life happened, friends were meeting for a play date (which ended up being AWESOME) and Jason wanted to go garage saleing. Jason did decide on Sunday to do a little potty training, but not exactly what I had in mind as far as a 3 day immersion course where I could really work with her around the clock to see if she was in fact ready or if she just liked the idea. In the mornings this past week Lauren has worked with Oslo and Blythe a little bit, but I wouldn't say that Blythe had any real big success. In fact a few of the stories made me think that she really wasn't ready, especially since Lauren said that when she did go she didn't seem to react or even tell Lauren.

Never the less I had in my head that I would give it a try because IF she is in fact ready I wanted to have 2ish month under our belt before the newborn and if she isn't ready that is just fine too, but I would probably wait till just past 2 because I would want the new baby to be older before needing to run to the bathroom every couple of minutes.

SO enough with the background and on to TODAY! I started out the day with a potty chart and explained to Blythe that if she sat on the potty and tried to go she would get a sticker and if she went tee tee in the potty she got one skittle and if she went poo poo in the potty she would get 2 skittle. So we put on the big girl underwear at 9:15 and sat on the potty every 40ish minutes. By 12:30 there was NO action, no accidents and no tee tee in the potty. We were out on the front porch at 12:50 and she started to tee tee, but I quickly got her to the potty and I explained to her that if she feels tee tee coming she needs to tell mommy. She didn't end up going tee tee and it didn't see like she had tee tee'd that much outside, esp. since she hadn't done anything for 4 hours (heck, I had already gone at least 5 times). At 1pm it was time for a nap so I put her in a diaper for nap time because I was just certain she needed to go. I guess this little girl knows how to hold it! She insisted on big girl underwear so our compromise was to wear the big girl underwear over the diaper. She took a great 2 hour nap and to my surprise she was DRY when she woke up. I asked her when she woke up if she wanted to sit on the potty and she told me no and I didn't want to push the issue because I thought she might need a little more time to get woken up.

I kinda lost track of time and about 20 minutes later she had a pretty full diaper. I felt like she tried a LOT in the morning with no success so I made some juice hoping that she would down more fluids and we would have more opportunities. Even if we had more accidents I figured that at least gives her the chance to know what it feels like and for us to talk about it. At 4:00 our tee tee timer went off so we headed to the bathroom to try. She quickly informs me that she needs her Elmo book and it wasn't long after we started reading the Elmo book that the aroma began to change. Shortly after that the potty began to sing so I knew she had tee tee'd in the potty as well as poo poo'd. [Jason came across this potty at a garage sale for $5 and it is supposed to sing when you go, but I guess it is liquid activated because it doesn't sing for poo poo, which seems odd, but oh well Blythe doesn't really dig the singing anyways.] YEAH our first successful try attempt and she tee tee'd and poo poo'd. She very much enjoyed getting to flush the toilet and her 3 skittles. I would be lying if I didn't admit that I really felt like giving her more skittles. I knew there wasn't a whole lot of tee tee in with the poo poo, but I still set the timer for 40 minutes. About 20 minutes later we had an accident and we once again talked about telling mommy when we feel tee tee coming.

THEN the most exciting part of the day happened. About 7:40 she looked up at me and said "potty," we rushed into the potty and we barely had the Elmo book out before the potty started to sing!! YEAH Blythe she not only tee tee'd in the potty, but she told me she needed to go (and yes that got 2 skittle instead of 1, even though it was just tee tee). I thought this was a HUGE step and quiet honestly one that I wasn't sure she was capable of grasping yet and certainly not on immersion day 1!

About and hour later Jason came home and I was washing dishes, I thought I heard her say "potty," and she ran into the bathroom, but I didn't run after her and instead told Jason that I think she said potty. Well she didn't make it to the potty, but I still give at least 3/4 credit because she KNEW she needed to go and she went to the bathroom. I take the blame for this accident. This was probably a classic rookie mistake...when potty training if you think your child says anything close to signaling that they need to go DROP everything and GO. Just one more reason why this kind of training and a newborn would NOT go well together. After this accident she asked for a diaper which was actually right on scheudle for bed time, but I really hope that she wasn't discouraged because she did SO well today.

All in All I think Blythe totally ROCKED it today and I am excited to see what tomorrow holds. I am one PROUD mommy!