potty training Janelle

This could be viewed as a very insignificant post to some, but to a mom whose now potty trained 3 kids, it has to be documented. lol  Really though, when I was in the first week of potty training Janelle and not having much luck, I was desperately searching for old blog posts about potty training with the other kids looking for helpful hints or just some glimmer of hope because it was not going great.

When Kandace was 20 mos she went pee on the potty and I thought for sure potty training would be a cinch with her, but I learned the hard way that just because they'll GO, doesn't mean they're ready to be potty trained.  At least that was our experience with Kandace.  She was just too young, and it took 4 months of torture until she was 100%.  I was too stubborn to put her in a pullup and definitely didn't want to put her back in a diaper because I wasn't giving up.

Well we started potty training Janelle about a month ago.  I was driving home from zoo montana to get my bountiful basket and realized we were totally out of diapers, and we'd just been to COSTCO the day before. Ugh.  So I thought "why not just potty train her now?!"  She is 29 months and had been showing lots of interest for a couple months but I was not ready to go down the potty training road again.  No way.  So I decided she was old enough did it the way I've done it with all 3, using the doll/underwear/drink that they suggest in "Pottwise" which is written by the same pediatricians who wrote "babywise."  It was all really last minute and kind of frantic since all 3 kids were home and it wasn't planned.  Michael was super helpful and Janelle was really interested, especially after the doll peed in the toilet (we put water with yellow food coloring in the potty for dramatic effect) lol.  But the book says to put a HUGE emphasis on teaching your child to not just go pee/poo but to stay dry.  You're supposed to reward them for just staying dry, which means you ask them periodically if they're dry and them reward them if they are.  Its exhausting, so I sort of did the "modified" version of the recommended procedure.  I always get my hopes up too and think they'll be getting it that same day, which the books suggests a lot of kids do if you do it right.  So of course when she peed 5 pairs of underwear that day I felt like a failure and in the next couple days we decided to go back to diapers and wait a few more months.  Well she actually started going pee and poo more often and is having less and less accidents.  It has definitely been a gradual process.  Thanksgiving day she didn't have any accidents and stayed in her "honeys" (undies) all day, even on the car ride home.  I'm knocking on wood that things continue this way and counting my blessings that its going so well, because after doing this 3 times my only advice is to stay calm, be consistent and expect lots of accidents.