*Disclaimer: There's a lot of potty language in here. I'm embarrassed to post, but need advice. Don't read if you'll be grossed out or judge me. ;)
Potty training is in full swing here. I've gotta admit, I'm wingin' it. Maybe I should have read a couple of books on the topic or feverishly discussed it at playgroup before digging in. It's been hovering over my head for many, many months now. We bought a little potty nearly a year ago, and Hazel's quite accomplished at using it before hopping in the tub each night. But as for going all out, first it seemed Hazel was not quite ready, then it seemed if we tried it would be a battle of wills, so it just wasn't happening.
About two weeks ago, we window shopped princess panties. Hazel was just about drooling. So we started talking it up. "When you go pee pee in the potty all the time, you can wear panties!!!"
Then Hazel started to annoy me by asking for diaper changes right after she went - even if it was just a little tinkle. I got tired of throwing away almost dry diapers and made her go potty and empty her bladder before I'd put a new one on. She started successfully keeping her diaper dry for several hours at a time.
So I got the princess pull-ups I bought months ago out of storage. Hazel was thrilled with them. She spent about thirty minutes straight that first day "practicing" pulling them down, sitting on the potty, pulling them up. She's still in a dress-only fashion bubble, so clothes aren't an issue right now. And I thought, what the heck, let's cold-turkey it. She hasn't been in a diaper since.
For the next couple of days, she'd start to pee in the pull-ups, stop herself, and finish the job in the bathroom. It's now been probably five days where she hasn't peed in the pull-ups at all. She's got it down.
It's the poop that's the problem.
She won't use the potty for it. I know it's supposedly normal for potty training to happen in stages, but how long should I expect? In the meantime, what do I do? I tried her in panties today instead of a pull-up and it was a big mistake. It did nothing to change her behavior and DID cause a scene in the store we were shopping at and DID make a gross mess I had to clean up (thankfully only on Hazel and not on the store floor) and it's WAY worse than cleaning up a diaper. So I think we'll be in pull-ups for a while yet.
I don't know what my next step should be. Do I stay chill and act like it's no big deal that she won't poop in the potty? Do I make a big deal that she's pooping on the princesses and they don't like it? How long until she does what she's supposed to do where she's supposed to do it?
5 comments:
Hey Angie! I sent you an email, but I wanted to add that I took Ru to the mall and let her play in the toy store until I found out what her favorite toy was. She wanted a rocking horse- so I put a picture of it over her potty and every time she went, we'd say,"When you poop, you get the horsey"-- she forgot as did we, so she doesn't have one, but it was great motivation!
I wish I had awesome advice for you. I swear potty training is one of the worst things I've had to do as a parent. And obviously what works for one, won't work for another. It's all about personality and what motivates them.
As far as poop goes, I gave her lots of juice and salty snacks the first week, which helped it to come more easily. :) When we did have one of those accidents, she had to have a shower to get clean (which she hated at the time) and we discussed how much longer it took to go through the whole clean up ordeal (she hates missing out on playing). Plus, we went straight to panties during the day time. And we watched lots of potty movies and read lots of potty books.
Good Luck! She'll get it eventually.
There's a book called "Everyone poops" I know it sounds weird but it talks about how everyone poops and how they poop. Also all of my classes teach that you want to make sure that she doesn't think that she is disappointing you if she doesn't make it in the potty. Potty training is something that should be internal, you could talk to her about how as you get older you get to go pee and poop in the toilet. Some books even suggest taking them in the bathroom with you and show them that you use the big potty too. Mainly let the potty training be internal like asking her if it makes her feel so good inside when she uses the big potty. Its all about the internal motivation not external! :) No worries I'm currently helping to potty train a girl at work - its not easy and I've helped potty train about 5 others so I'm not just shooting in the dark plus I have HAD to read the books for my classes!
it took ashli a while...i tried for a long time before she was ready (at 3 and 1 month), so hooray for hazel! as far as pooping in the potty...we made ash a chart. when she got 10 times on the potty, she got a treat. the treats were things she picked out in the dollar bins at target. when she got to 100, we gave her something big...i can't remember what it was now lol. i have a couple of potty dvds if you want to borrow them :)
Ha ha! I love that all moms are in the same boat. :) We went through exactly this with Brooklyn, and I was baffled because we did NOT go through this with Kate (she cold-turkeyed it all, pee, poop, day, night... because she was so old by the time she gave up the battle!) So... we just put a diaper on Brooklyn when she needed to poop and she'd go and then we'd change her. It was weird and really frustrated me. But it didn't last very long. Once she successfully pooped on the potty chair (not on purpose, she was sitting there and realized she had to go #2 and we did not rescue her with a diaper, so she just went), she was really proud afterward, and was totally fine doing it after that. Bribery did not work. Also I was surprised that princess pull-ups did not work for either of my girls. They loved them but I guess they just felt the same as diapers so they'd just use them like diapers! Also we had to make sure she drank a lot of water because the anxiety of going poop made her hold it and she'd get a little... backed up. Sorry, WAY TMI I know!!! Good luck!
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