Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Potty Training

Corinne is potty-trained! This is a bit of a late announcement since she has been wearing underwear for quite some time, but I wanted to wait just in case she backslid and reverted to relying more heavily on the diaper. Also, fair warning for the rest of this post: there is frequent mention of toilet-related words - read at your own risk!

We had a good frame of reference to start the process with because, ever since Corinne was tiny we have been emptying her BMs into the toilet, saying "bye-bye poop" and flushing the toilet together. She has also always accompanied me on my trips to the bathroom so the concept wasn't completely foreign to her. Memaw got her a potty book and a little potty for the playroom so that we would have a place for her to go on every floor of the house.

We started to introduce the idea over the summer and at first it was a challenge just to get her to sit on the toilet. If she showed any interest and would spend more than a few moments "trying" we would reward her with an m&m. That worked well to help abate any tentative emotions she had about the potty, but it didn't do much to teach her to use the potty. We had a really difficult time getting her to the bathroom at a time when she actually needed to void.

After limited success and much stress for all involved, we decided to take a break from potty-training. When everyone was much more relaxed we blocked off an entire weekend to spend at home and really focus our efforts. Corinne spent the weekend sans pants so that she would be sure to feel the results of any urge she may have. We also kept her sippy cup filled with liquid to ensure that there would be many teaching opportunities. After only a couple of accidents she started to show signs (or maybe I started to recognize the signs she had been showing all along!) when she needed to go and we got her to the potty in time to get some of her pee in the toilet. We made a huge deal out of this success with lots of cheering and clapping, Corinne was very proud and by the end of the day on Sunday she was doing great.

Monday we kept her home from school and she spent one more day training at home with GG who is a potty-training expert! She had a great day with GG and an evening of success when I got home from work. On Tuesday I sent her to school and talked to her teachers about her successful weekend and they agreed to work with her during the week. That first week she had accidents on a fairly regular basis so we went back to diapers for school and worked on the potty training at home. After a couple of great weekends and evenings at home we were ready to encourage her to use the potty at school.

At this point she is regularly in underwear all day, every day with the exception of nap time and overnight...but she's even starting to wake up during nap or in the middle of the night to use the potty, especially if she needs to have a BM. We have also nixed the m&m reward and instead incorporated a potty chart where she gets a sticker for a successful trip to the potty. She loves this and I have fun getting all kinds of different stickers - right now we have pumpkins for Halloween!

For a while I would put her in a pull-up if we were leaving the house for an extended period of time so that if she had an accident we wouldn't have to change her pants, we could just take off the pull-up. But now she is so comfortable using the potty that she will hold it until she can go in a toilet and when we are somewhere unfamiliar (restaurant, grocery store, etc.) one of the first things she wants to do is go to the restroom to check out the potty, find the wipes, flush the toilet and wash her hands. Then, if she needs to go while we are there she is confident in their facilities and comfortable enough to use their bathroom.

We are so proud of our little girl, way to go Corinne!

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