The Latest on Potty Training

So! Since our last "going for broke" potty training update, here is what has transpired.

When we decided we were going for broke, we meant it. We actually went so far as to return an unopened package of diapers that we had in the house, which meant that there were only about 10 diapers total in the house that would fit R (other than cloth diapers we could always slap on her in dire need).

That meant we were even keeping her in underpants overnight. We did this with no real preparation or lead-up. Something just kind of snapped in us and we just gung-ho WENT FOR IT.

I mean, once you think to yourself, "what is the worst that can happen?" potty training feels a lot less daunting. For us, we figured, the worst that can happen is maybe she's not ready and really cannot tell if she has to pee or not. Or she has a bunch of accidents in which case we just keep on changing her.

J bought this large waterproof pad that we put underneath R's sheet and on top of the mattress pad, and we put her to bed in underpants figuring, if she wet the bed, she wet the bed and we'd change the sheets and just keep on going.

And, as I already wrote, she DID NOT WET THE BED.

That was almost 2 weeks ago. We haven't put a diaper on her once. There were, I want to say, 3 or 4 days of accidents. One day where she had accident after accident. We just took her pants off, took her to the potty, cleaned her up, and put fresh underpants and pants on. I had to rub some aquaphor all over her thighs one evening because she was getting awfully sore from all the accidents.

The next day there were a few more accidents. But not as many. The biggest trouble was poop for a few days after that. We kept trying to catch it before she did it in her pants. The breakthrough was about a week ago when she actually started to go, said, "Oh no! Daddy! Yucky!" and J whisked her to the potty quick as can be. She had only done a small amount in her underwear and the rest she did on the potty.

Hallelujah! Since then she has not had a poop accident.

We are not completely potty trained yet, and there have been nighttime accidents--I want to say 2 or 3 nights she's wet the bed--but mostly, that hasn't been a problem. We also went on a road trip this weekend, 5 hours each way, and no accidents. Actually, no accidents all weekend.

The next step is for us to feel comfortable not reminding her to go every hour. Right now we're still telling her, "R, it's potty time!" or "In 5 minutes, we're going to go use the potty, ok?" She throws some tantrums about this still. I think she is starting to have a good sense of when she has to go and the tantrums might be related to her really not feeling like she has to go. However, most of the time that we take her to the potty, she uses it.

One thing I think is really working for us is warning her about going to the potty before we actually take her. That is, rather than just interrupting what she's doing and saying, "Okay, time to use the potty!" we tell her that after she does X, we're going to use the potty. Or we give her a time limit--even though she doesn't really know how long 5 minutes or 10 minutes is, giving her that warning and then not making her go RIGHT THEN seems to be effective.

Now we just need to work on giving her the freedom to tell us when she has to go. We've been so intent on avoiding accidents that we haven't done that yet. I'll keep you updated--but feel free to ask how she's doing in a week or so!

(BTW, Thanks, Anon, for asking, and reminding me that I hadn't updated about this yet!)