We have had a few accidents the past couple days, but they always occur just before bed when she is getting tired! We have even braved leaving the house with her in panties! Today at church she used the potty twice and we went out to eat afterwards and she went there too!!
Bradley and I feel so relieved that it was such a smooth transition!! We had SO many discussions prior to starting on how we wanted to do it, we were so nervous it was going to be a summer long battle! Thankfully, it was a week long one!! We just picked up a routine, and have stayed very strict to it. Here are a few things we did that worked for Addy!
- She got up each morning and went straight to panties after she sat on the potty.
- If she went on the potty, she got to put a sticker on her chart, 2 M&Ms, AND we did the potty dance!
- We started by asking her VERY often if she had to go, when she sat on the potty we encouraged her to sit on it for a while, but I was very careful to never make her sit on it...she gets aversions to things that she has to do! The first day we brought ALL kinds of toys in the bathroom and set up camp. By the third day, we just ran to the potty when she told us she needed to go.
- We celebrated every single DROP that landed in the potty the first 2 or 3 days. It starts small, very small!!
- We went straight to panties, no in between time in pull ups. She has a weird obsession with diapers and I knew that if we used them at all, we would have issues. Several times after she had an accident she would cry for a diaper. We just stayed firm that she was a big girl and didn't use diapers anymore!
- With that said, we still use pull ups for naptime and bedtime. We have made a big deal that they are Night Night Panties, so that they were not mistaken for a diaper.
- We have taken her potty everywhere with us!! If we have left the house, the potty has gone. It paid off on the way to church today. She started hollering about half way there, so we whipped in a parking lot and opened the hatch on the car and she went...in the back of my car, in CVS....but no accident in that pretty dress!
- Pooping was the biggest obstacle, she had a few accidents this week, but she disliked it enough that she decided that was a bad deal. She held it the other day until she about made herself sick. She would cry she had to potty, so we went, but she just couldn't let herself go. She finally just couldn't hold it anymore! I was SO proud of her!! (of course, She saw it and starting gagging, about to throw up! Such a girl!! HAHA!!!)
- We were very strict about the stickers and M&Ms. Over spring break when we gave pottying a try, we got lenient about 'well she tried hard, so here is one, or Addy if you sit on the potty you can have an M&M...that obviously didn't work! If there wasn't anything in the potty she didn't get anything.
- There are still many times a day that she runs to the potty and we wait, and she decides she doesn't have to go, or she squeezes out a few drops, just to get the M&Ms...but she is learning and we won't do M&Ms forever!
- If your kiddo is an ELMO fan, I recommend the Elmo Potty Time movie. She has watched it a 100 times this week, but it helped ease her anxiousness. If Elmo does it, so can Addy. If she has an accident she now says, Elmo Sad....
- We never scold her if she had an accident, we would tell her, I am so sad you TT'd in your panties, now we have to change them. Hence, the Elmo sad....usually followed by, Mama sad. Of course, when I ask her Addy are you sad? she replies with NO!
