Potty Diary

If you don't care to hear about the potty habits of a 2 year old, this post is not for you. There will be talk of peeing and pooing, so don't say I didn't warn you...



Jonathon was almost 3 when he finally potty trained. I remember hoping that he would be potty trained for his 3rd birthday party. I think I was just sort of clueless and didn't understand the work that was involved. I thought that potty training was something that the kid would sort of do on their own. Like they would just decide one day that they needed to go to the potty. Jonathon used to go to a not very well traveled room in the house to do his business. I remember thinking it was so cute that he wanted his privacy. Hello, clueless wonder. I should have been snatching him up and running to the bathroom. But that was all back when I only had one child.



Emma Mae was born in Febuary the year that Jackson would turn 3 in July and Madi would turn 2 in June. That meant that when I brought her home from the hospital, I was buying diapers for 3 kids. This is what forced Jackson into potty training. I still didn't really know anything about potty training at this point and then I had a pivotal conversation with my friend Sharon. She explained that kids don't really know when they are wet with a diaper or a pull up on, so you need to just put them in undies and let them figure it out. (I swear that's a secret the disposable diaper companies don't want us to know.) Right around this time, Josh's grandma started bringing me underwear for Jackson and Madi. I thought, 'Ok, I get the hint.' It was like a convergence of all of these people saying, 'Just put them in underwear.' So, I had a newborn baby and I was trying to potty train Jackson. When Jackson would get on the potty and get his treat, Madi wanted to do it, too. I had the underwear from nanny, but I still remember thinking that I wished she didn't want to because I couldn't really handle a newborn and two potty trainers. Then I thought about only having one kid in diapers and changed my mind very quickly.



Emma Mae has been the last kid in diapers. So, I've waited for the cues and read up a little more on potty training. She started taking her diaper off and last week she pointed at her bum and said, 'I peed'. That was it. It's time. I had a few pairs of undies to hand down from Madi but I ran to the store to get some Dora ones that I knew she would love. The idea being if they love the character on the front they won't want to pee on them, right? The first few days she peed and pooed all over the place. But I had her in thick pants, so the mess wasn't too bad. I would try to plan my trips for a time when she had just gone potty and then not give her anything to drink while we were out. I thought I would try the treat trick with her, but it only infuriated her so I ended up giving a lot of treats with no peeing. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.



She has now officially pooed in the potty three times. That seems to be the hard one to convince them to do in the potty. I read somewhere that they feel like they are losing an organ when they do that and her face sure looked scared that first time. She's down to a couple of accidents a day because she or I will get distracted. She's doing great and I couldn't be more proud.



Potty training is definately just about training the parents to watch for signs and be ready to jump and run. It's a ton of work and I am sure happy to be done with it. Forever...