Let's Get This Potty Started!

Hopefully, I bought my last box of these at Costco yesterday...

because we'll be buying these from now on!

Katie Anne officially started potty training last Monday, and it has gone very, very well. I didn't blog about it then because I wanted to give it a few days and see if she was ready. We tried over Spring Break, and I don't think either of us was ready then. She loved wearing the panties, and she went in the potty a lot. However, she didn't really seem to "get it" when the urge was coming on, and she had many accidents. I didn't do a very good job of taking her on any sort of schedule. Also, I wasn't willing to sit around all week long, taking her to the potty all the time. So, we tabled that little activity for the summer. Since then, she's periodically worn panties when she wanted to, and she has gone on her potty every night before bath time (and a few times at her request).

So, last Monday, we went gung-ho with wearing underwear. Mostly, she's wearing Gerber training panties... they're a little thicker, and absorb more in case of an accident, but they still feel like panties. But, when she wants to, she does wear the little princess ones she picked out.

She loves wearing underwear. So, she's kind of potty training herself... she hates to mess up her panties. Also, I'm having her clean up her own messes in the floor with paper towels (of course, I go behind her and redo), and that seems to drive the point home that I don't want pee in my floor. So far, she's only had three accidents in 10 days. Two were peeing accidents, but I think they served the purpose of helping her realize the "urge feeling" and also how to stop once she started. The second time, she stopped herself and said, "I need to go potty!" Then, she finished up in the potty - none even got in the floor that time. Both of these were last week. The third time, which was yesterday, she pooped in the panties. (One other "accident" I don't count... she said she needed to go pee in the potty, and I foolishly said, "One minute and we will." Yeah, right!)

She's also had one "accident" that wasn't an accident. She thought it would be funny on Monday of this week to pee on my rug, and she told me "Mommy, I so funny... I tee tee on your rug now!" She quickly found out how not funny that was.

So, the pooping has been the final frontier. I hadn't been doing any rewards, other than praise, for going in the potty, but I thought this morning that I would bust out Dum Dum lollipops (her favorite) for any poops in the potty. That was just the motivation she needed, and tonight she told us she needed to go... and she did! She was SO happy with herself, and with her mango Dum Dum!

She is SUCH a big girl! We are SO proud of her! So far, it has been much easier than I anticipated, and I hope our good times keep rolling!