Potty training! (A very Mommy post)

Yes, you read that right. Miss Ellie is potty training! Truth be told, my little girl has been peeing on the potty for about 8 months now, but she doesn't do it consistently. She usually uses it before bathtime and on occasion during the day on Saturday and Sunday. It was more a game to her than anything else, but we let her go with it. Every parent has a different way to approach potty training. Mine is for Ellie to decide when she wants to do it. Lucky for me that my daycare provider uses the same approach; it's nice to be on the same page because Ellie IS with her every weekday, ya know? There's no denying that Teri is helping to bring up Ellie, and honestly, I love her for it. She's given me so much good advice, I can't thank her enough.

Teri, Harry, and I all noticed that Ellie has been tugging on her diaper the past couple of weeks, a sure sign that she now finds being wet uncomfortable. That's cue number 1. She's been asking to use the potty more often. Cue number 2. She also tells us immediately after she goes that she wants her diaper changed. Cue number 3.

On Thursday last week, she saw one of the older girls at daycare go to use the bathroom, so of course, she wanted to be a big girl too and use the potty. After they were both done, Teri casually asked Ellie if she'd like to put on some underwear. Ellie said YES, which is a big deal because she hasn't been too keen on the underwear thing. She spent the whole day in underwear and only had once accident. Holy cow!

Friday was much the same, and I had originally decided that we would go for full blown potty training on the long weekend of the 4th. I had even messaged a friend who had recently potty trained her girl with a certain technique and asked her if she could send the plan along to me. A lot of it was useful, but in the end, we couldn't use the plan because Ellie's already been using the potty. Still, I read through it carefully and took what I could from it to use in our circumstance.

Ellie ended up training this past weekend instead of next. She did fantastic. It's like a light suddenly went on, and she realizes the sensation of needing to go. She spent the majority of the weekend in underwear, and even when she asked to wear her diapie instead, she still used the potty and kept the diapie dry.

She had no accidents yesterday or last night, and she wore underwear all day. This morning was the ultimate test... she went to daycare in underwear instead of a diaper. That's right, I let her go in the car without a diapie, knowing full-well my car might reek of pee for the rest of the day if it didn't work out. We made one last trip to the potty before we left the house and drove the 10-15 minutes to Teri's. Once we got there, Ellie went directly to the bathroom and peed with no assistance. I am SO proud of her.

And Ellie's more than happy to be training, mostly because of all the stickers she gets. Heh heh. She's become a sticker fanatic the last few days. We put up a large sheet of paper on the fridge so she can display all the stickers she's gotten so far. It's really cute. She's so proud of them. In fact, she loves them so much that she insists on going pee pee in the potty 4 times every time she needs to pee. Yeah, I'm not so excited about that. We're usually in there for 10 minutes because of it. And I quickly told her that she only gets 1 sticker regardless of how many times she pees in a short period. She's cool with that, but she still likes to pee 3 or 4 times. Good Lord. LOL

I know we still have a little work ahead of us (she's not night-trained, mostly because she likes to have a cup of milk before bed.) Once we can break her of that habit, night training is doable. Even my mom said not to push it right now; her body most likely isn't ready. I also know there are bound to be accidents in the next few months, and I'm ready to deal with that (I think... I hope).