Potty Training: Day 1

Today is the big day that I've been looking forward to/dreading for awhile now. I'm 22 weeks pregnant and today I started potty training my 27 month old daughter. It is going much better than I had ever imagined. I've been talking up using the potty with her for several weeks now to help build her excitement. Yesterday we went to Walmart and I let her pick out which panties she wanted to wear. She picked out Minnie Mouse undies and I can't wait to see her in them. I had bought a potty at a consignment sale and already had it ready to go. I am using the 3 day method, or a variation of it, so we have Thursday-Saturday blocked off to stay home and learn to potty. I wish that I could include links to all of my references but there are more than I can remember. I basically googled potty training or 3 day potty training and read all the sites and blogs as well as asked several of my friends who have potty trained in the last few years. I put together what I thought would work best for us and I'm hoping I'm right so far.

The morning didn't start off exactly like I had planned. When I walked into Caroline's room, the first thing I noticed was her diaper laying right in the middle of the floor and she was standing in a puddle of pee on her mattress. It really upset her so I calmed her down and told her that we're going to start using the potty for our pee. She got really excited! I cleaned up the mess, dressed her in only a t-shirt, and headed downstairs to begin our day. I showed her the potty, a new potty book, and her sticker chart.

New potty book, sticker chart, and potty

Then I set my phone to go off every 15 minutes. When my phone would beep, I'd set her on the potty. I also tried to catch her and put her on the potty if I saw that she was peeing or pooping. I missed the first several times because I was trying to get everything set up. I fixed her a bowl of pretzels to snack on throughout the day and some "special potty drink" (a.k.a. Kool-aid). This drink was a big deal because she normally only drinks water and milk. 

Special potty drink, milk, water, and pretzels

I also brought out some toys that she hasn't seen in awhile to help keep her occupied. I tried to avoid watching tv as much as possible mostly because I was afraid she'd get sucked into a show and not pay attention. We kept the potty in the living room and played with the toys on the hearth. 

She loved playing with all of  her toys that she hadn't seen in awhile.

While she was playing with her toys, I noticed that it seemed like she was trying to hold something in. I kept sitting her on the potty but nothing. This was about an hour and a half into it. Then all of a sudden she squatted and pooped. I quickly jumped up and sat her on the potty. One of the little poops actually ended up in her potty so I let that count for her first sticker. We wiped and took our potty to dump into the big potty and wash her hands. I then let her pick out a Mickey Mouse sticker to put on her paper. She wasn't as excited as I thought she would have been but oh well. About ten minutes later, she was playing and started peeing. I quickly jumped up and sat her on the potty again. After she was through, we did our dump the potty into the toilet routine and washed our hands. This time when we came back she was more excited about the Mickey sticker. She immediately wanted another one so I told her that she could have one when she used the potty again. She immediately sat down and peed a little. I was so ecstatic! I felt like that was the moment when it clicked that she was supposed to put her pee and poop in the potty. But then she realized that if she sat on the potty the whole time, then there would be no way she would miss and would always get the stickers. I couldn't get her off the potty. 

Playing with her toys while sitting on the potty. 

I eventually had to bribe her with watching her favorite show on tv to get her to get off the potty. We turned Jake and the Neverland Pirates on from Netflix and I had her sit on the couch with me. Each episode has two stories in it that are about 12 minutes each. I turned my timer off of my phone and would just pause it after each story and have her sit on the potty. This worked really well and she went every time. 

Next was lunch time. I had pulled her table next to where the potty was in the living room so we could be eating nearby. We had a super healthy lunch of frozen pizza. Part of the way through eating, she suddenly said potty and jumped up and sat down it. Next thing I knew, she was pooping! I was so excited that she chose to get up on her own, mid bite, and go poop in the potty! We did an extra big celebration for this one! After our bathroom routine, we started chowing back down on our pizza. About 5 minutes later, she said potty again and ran over to the potty. This time she peed in it! I couldn't believe she was going on her own so fast! After lunch we watched a couple more episodes of Jake then headed up to her room for nap time. I put a pull-up on before nap and explained that we only wore those to sleep in. 

Pooping on her own for the first time!

Pizza goatee!

 After nap we came back downstairs and returned to playing with our toys. Ever since those two instances at lunch, she has been going to the potty on her own so I haven't had to use my timer. She has done such a good job with going potty! I'm hoping that once the potty is moved into the bathroom that she'll continue keeping up the good work! Here's to hoping for a successful day 2 tomorrow!!!

This girl loves her potty!!!