So my sweet little princess is not a baby any more. She is a big girl.
Over July 4th weekend I took on the big task of potty training. Yup- potty training. Can you believe it?- she is old enough to potty train. It seems like she was just learning to crawl.
We had heard about a potty training method called 3 Day Potty Training. I figured - we could try it and see if it would work for us- It's only 3 days. I read the .pdf and knew I could do it. All I needed was big girl underwear and a 3 day weekend. July 4th was a perfect weekend to do this. I had a 3 day weekend off from work - and there were no plans on our calendar. Brianna was also very ready to be potty trained. She was very good about taking off her own diaper and helping us wipe her bottom when we changed her diaper. So - yeah, she was ready. I went and bought about 25-30 pairs of big girl underwear (yes that many - depending on how many accidents she would have - you needed to have enough undies for the weekend so you weren't doing laundry every day) and some stickers for the potty chart and some M&M's for a reward.
I got up Saturday am, changed her out of her diaper and put her in a tshirt and her underwear and explained to her that "she is a 'Big girl' now and the big girls go pee in the potty"."To let mommy know when she needed to go potty and to keep her underwear dry." You say those statements over and over and over and over. This technique is all about positive reinforcement and looking for the child's signs of when they need to go the the bathroom and to get them recognize for themselves when they need to go potty. She picked it up right away and was telling me when she needed to go to the potty. I would stop what I was doing and quickly go with her to the bathroom. We praise her big when she goes in the potty and keeps her underwear dry. There are lots of big smiles- fists up in the air- yay's, high fives and " we are so proud of you". The smile on her face when she gets those praises is amazing. She is so proud of her self. We called daddy (he wasn't home most of that weekend) and we would call grandma so Brianna could tell everyone she went in the potty like a big girl. Even now, a few weeks later, I will get a call from Tim while I am at work and it will be Brianna- she wants to tell me she went in the potty- and I praise her over the phone and tell her how proud I am. We have had a few accidents but that's ok. We never get mad or make her feel bad - we say 'icky' when she has an accident, clean her up and remind her that she needs to keep her underwear dry and to tell mommy and daddy when she needs to go potty. I am so proud of her. Occasionally she has waken up in the middle of the night and will call for me - I will go get her and take her to the bathroom. She will go potty and then go right back to bed. All the other nights/mornings she wakes up dry. We even braved leaving the house last week and she did great at the softball fields. No accidents while we were out.
I still can't believe it. She is potty trained. Such a big girl.
What has really got me is that she is not sleeping in a crib anymore. She is in a toddler/day bed. - yes - another milestone. 2 milestones in the past 3 weeks.
I tried to keep her in a crib for as long as possible. It lasted 2.5 yrs. Last night (while I was getting my hair did) Tim put Brianna to bed. He was in the livingroom when he heard a 'THUD'. He knew right away what had happened. She had climbed/fallen out of her crib. She had been actively thinking about climbing out of her bed for a while now. We have video monitors on each of the kids beds and we will watch her at night after we put her in bed stand up in her crib and place 1 leg over the railing - but she had never gone all the way over - until last night. She would climb 'in' her crib -just not out. So today Tim converted her convertible crib into the next stage - a toddler/day bed. She did fine for her afternoon nap - now it's nigh' nigh' time. So far(knock on wood) she hasn't gotten out. I am trying to prepare myself for the night when she gets up - opens her door - comes into our room and scares the bageebies out of me.My Big Girl.
