Potty Party
When I started blogging I told myself I would stick to a strict schedule and publish every other week. But I didn't want to make anyone feel bad for not having their life together as well as me, so for YOUR sake, I failed at that goal and let a month go by without anything. You're welcome.
Our little family has been through a lot of adjustments and changes lately --- the two main ones are ::
We changed our van tires to winter tires. Yep, the first snow of the season is expected this week. Nope, we are not [emotionally] prepared.
Bradlee is potty trained!
Alright, it might not be a huge deal, but we're pretty happy. And we always get tons of questions about how we do potty training, so I'm going to share with you our magical formula now. Seriously, it feels magical... both girls potty trained SO fast with this method. Rayne was still a one year old when she potty trained. It's been a over week for Brads so far and she's only had two accidents! Also, she gets out of the bathtub to go pee, and even got out of the swimming pool (while she was wearing a swim diaper!) to go pee on the potty. So if you're looking for a way to potty train your babe, look no further. Here you go ::
The Magical Potty Training Method ::
Look for signs that they are ready -- Rayne used to take off her diaper as soon as she peed or pooped, because she hated the feeling of it. So we knew she was ready to start going on the potty. Bradlee didn't show as many obvious signs, and honestly she probably would have been content to stay in diapers longer, but she did tell us when she peed or pooped in her diaper, so we knew she was aware enough to give it a try.
Set aside 2-3 days that you won't be leaving the home very often, preferably not at all.
Day One :: bring a little kiddo potty into the living room. Take diapers/undies off all day. Give your little one lots of water/juice, and put them on the potty every half hour to try to pee. We spent the whole day playing games and hanging out in the living room, so Bradlee was always right by her potty. This first day is the hardest, because they don't know the signs that they're about to pee, and they don't know what it means to get their pee out on their own. So it's a lot of learning cues and muscle memory for them!
Have a treat ready for them anytime they get something out on the potty (even if it's just a drop of pee!). This can be a sticker, a tiny piece of candy, etc etc..
Day Two :: this time we started out just like day one - potty in the living room, no undies. But we moved the potty into the bathroom later in the day. We also let her have the choice of wearing her undies. She chose to about half of the time. Give treats every time they go on the potty, same as day one.
Day Three :: on the last day, we made sure the potty was in the bathroom the whole time and we also introduced her to the big potty (we have a little seat that goes on it so she doesn't fall in). Put undies/pants on all day. Taper down the treats - we only gave her one on day three if she asked (which was less than half of the time).
Extra tips ::
We take the little potty in the car with us if we are driving far and know we won't be near a bathroom for a while.
We put a pee-pad in her carseat because we learned the hard way with Rayne that carseats are not fun to clean, and those seem to be when the most accidents happen.
We still have Bradlee in a diaper through the night, but she went four days without peeing during her nap so as long as she goes potty right before nap, then we let her nap in her undies.
Pact Organic (wearpact.com) has awesome training undies that help absorb pee and we have LOVED them!
Bradlee decided to wear four shirts, probably since we told her she couldn't wear any pants.
XO,
