The dreaded potty training has begun with our 2 (almost 3) year old. I have admittedly dropped the ball in this stage of her development. After a failed attempted around 20 months and then having a new baby it was easy to push this to the back burner. I was already very intimidated by the whole process so any excuse to hold off was fine with me. While I hate buying and changing diapers, using a public restroom with a little human that wants to "explore" and touch EVERYTHING does not sound much better. Then we began this full-time family, #traveling lifestyle and it was just another reason it could wait. I think most moms/parents struggle with how to handle potty training. So here is our experience.
For our last #roadtrip of the year we decided to visit "Aunt Hols". While she was getting the pleasure of changing one of Austen's dirty diapers (and getting grossed out) she said "girl you're too big for diapers you should start using the toilet". She finished changing her diaper but continued asking, do you need to go potty? Finally Austen said yes! They went and she did it! No tricks, no gimmicks, just sat on the regular toilet and went! I was on a work call and Austen was so excited to share the news when I got off. I was in shock but thrilled she was so excited. Plus she didn't even need the #kids potty we bought months ago. It really did start just that easy.
From there we set a timer every 30 minutes and had her try. Sometime she went, sometimes she didn't but we were heading in the right direction. We took a special trip to the store, just the girls, and she loved picking out her big girl panties! She quickly even started telling us before the timer that she had to go potty. Feeling pretty good about our progress we decided to make our drive back 2 1/2 hours without a diaper. My husband was skeptical but I was not going to lose momentum. Not going to lie using a different toilet was not easy, there were some tears, a try with Mommy, then Daddy and Mommy again before we had success. Not to mention the bribe of french fries at our pit stop. Overall we could not have asked for a potty training #rodtrip to go much better. Just as I was thinking this is not as bad as I thought it would be it happened….she had to go poop! You might be thinking what is the difference from going in the diaper but there was pure terror in her eyes the first time it happened on the toilet. After that she was willing herself not to poop. When she needed to go you would start to see the look of terror, we would have to force her to the bathroom screaming "I don't want to go poopies". I cannot even tell you how many panties we went through in one day. Gross!
I have never had to talk up the benefits of pooping so much in my life. We tried reassuring her that everyone goes poopy and it will make your tummy feel better once it is out. We even talked about how her favorite animals went poop! Nothing was working, even bribing her with ice cream was not making a difference.
Aunt Hols to the rescue, she sent Austen a book to read on my
kindle https://amzn.to/2DkJCVz (always supporting our downsizing life by not sending a hard copy). She felt so special that she had a book sent to her and she loved reading it. A few more tries talking about letting Mr. Poo out (and more ice cream) it was slowly getting better. A few days later she went to the bathroom without us even knowing and all of a sudden we hear "Mr. Poo is out, Mr. Poo is out". Oddly, one of the best things I have ever heard!
The next stage was going to be sleeping through the night without a diaper. I figured it would be a few weeks before that was even a thought. Then parents of the year struck again and we ran out of her diapers. It was bed time, we were tired and just said screw it, no time like the present! We put a towel under her sheet, without her knowing because she did not like the idea of laying on a towel. To our surprise she made it through the night and even slept in later than normal!
With all of this said, I have no recommendations for best practices of potty training. All I can say is if you don't have an Aunt Hols you need one. Having someone other than Mommy & Daddy talking her through it was priceless. For anyone working towards or currently living a #downsized life, you don't have to have all of the stuff. We truly did not need the special kid potty or pull ups, we went right to big girl panties. Good luck to any parents struggling through this stage with their little one. It will happen, eventually! I can say our potty training has officially moved to potty trained. It feels great, I am sure we will have random accidents and a wet bed here and there but we are 100% out of diapers. All of this just in time for my birthday, so I guess Happy Birthday to me?!?
You're welcome for not making these poopy pictures and only our ice cream celebration instead!
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