When my youngest was born in January of 2014, my daughter was a little over 2 years old.  Up until this point she had absolutely NO interest in going on the “big girl potty”.  We tried many, many times to get her to come into the bathroom when we had to potty, to learn what we were doing.  Most times she thought it was a game and would sit on her potty and make faces, grunting noises and say “done” with nothing in the potty after it was all said and done of course.  You all know can relate I’m sure.

Bringing home a little one, who of course was also in diapers, was a little too much after a few week of spending far too much time changing diapers.

Since I was home on maternity leave from work, I figured now was the time to do it!

 

So I began the search for the best way to potty train, sought advice from family and friends, looked on Pinterest for tips.  Then I stumbled across the “3 day potty training method” that I read about first on BabyCenter.com.

 

Three day’s seems intense, but I try to live by the motto “anything worth having is worth working for”, and potty training my toddler was SO very worth a 3 days of sacrifice!

 

 

On day one, the method calls for 5 minutes on and 5 minutes off the toilet.

ALL day. 

I chose to put her in big girl underwear this day.  She got to pick out Disney princess ones that she loved!

 

We started after breakfast. 

We made a ‘camp’ in our bedroom, right next to the bathroom and near toys and the TV for movies.

Every 5 minutes we did the on and off technique.  (Taking care of a newborn and doing this was NOT easy….so I recommend doing this before baby arrives if you’re expecting.)

 

Every time she made any pee into the potty, even drops, I would make a HUGE deal and celebrate. 

When she would actually pee or poo, I would give her an M&M and she got to choose a sticker to put on her potty chart.

The potty chart was literally a piece of paper with Poo and Pee across the top in columns.  When she would do one, she put a sticker on the right column.

This was fun for her and an incentive.  The M&M’s (which she had never had before then, we don’t give her candy ever really) was a good reward for a job well done.

Temper wise, she did really good this day.  She was cooperative and liked the ‘game’ she thought we were playing.  Not until the very end of the day (when I was exhausted from the routine) did she start refusing and throwing a fit to sit on the potty.  This night we did a earlier bedtime with a pull-up on.  (First time.  We called it big girl bedtime underwear.)

The next day she woke up and did pee during the night.

Bummer.

Since we were both tired of sitting in the same room all day, we found a new spot in the house. This time in the living room.  Bigger area but still made a potty spot.

I’m not gonna lie, I was super nervous she was going to unload urine all over my floors this day, but she did really good and never made me deal with that mess!

 

She really threw bad fits this day and I felt like I was forcing her to do something she hated.  But then every so often she would do great and potty like a big girl.  So I pushed on.

 

At lunch she peed all over her seat.  AND didn’t tell me.  This made me worry that ‘she’s not ready’.

 

By the time my husband came home that night I made him take over for a bit.

I quite frankly was REALLY tired of the ‘routine’.  I know Violet was too! 

 

Let me start out by saying that Violet has always waken up with a completely soaked diaper… every single morning since she was an infant.  She has never, ever woken up dry.

 

That was until day 3.

 

The day I was going to give up.

 

I was SO very excited when I saw she didn’t pee all night that I jumped up and down, laughed and said good girl about 25 times.

 

This day we had less routine.

I kept the underwear on her today and she did a good job at keeping them dry.

 

Every hour or so I would just tell her “lets go potty”.  I made the mistake on day two of asking “do you need to potty” when the answer is always no, which led to a break down crying fit when she ended up sitting on the potty.

 

I knew it all ‘clicked’ for her this day because each time we would sit on the potty, she would completely empty her bladder.  This also was the first day she pooped in the toilet.

 

Did I mention that yet…probably not.  She didn’t poop the first 2 days, and was obviously holding it.  Which  made me nervous and anxious about my decision to train her.

 

I still did the sticker chart and with the first poo, she got 4 M&M’s.  She figured out that poop meant more candy right away so she tried to poop all the time.  Then would demand her pay.

In the following weeks she began to finally ask to go potty, instead of me having to prompt her each time.  We also transitioned very easily from the potty chair to potty seats that go over the toilet seat.  We found a mickey mouse one that she loved!  We did this about 2 weeks later.

We did keep her in a pull-up, I know some may frown at this, but she wakes up dry 99% of the time.  So this past week we stopped the pull up and she’s only in underwear now.

She got it, I got to stop buying diapers and wipes for 2 babies, and all was well in the house!

::cue me dancing::