I am really only posting this for my own record and Devin's baby book since this blog is how I have her books printed. This is my account of how we have approached potty training so far.
Here is how the daycare and I have been doing it. I have been following her teachers lead for the most part as well as Devin's now too. So far we are doing really well. This is simply our experience and the way we have gone about it and may not work for every kid.
Devin started at 19 months the week after the 4th of July.
We first started by putting her on the potty every 15-20 minutes. She would go every time we put her there. We slowly worked our way up to every 30 minutes, then 45 minutes, then an hour. Within a month, she was going for days with no accidents. Probably really within about 2 weeks. Then we went on vacation and had to sort of start over again but she was back to no accidents within about a week. We have used Pull Ups the whole time, and I try not to make a big deal of accidents. Now, almost two months later, we are moving into training panties. I still expect there to be an accident here and there, but she is moving in the right direction.
At first, we were rewarding with a little sticker at home for every potty in the potty, then we moved to rewarding only for poop and now we aren't at all. At this point, if I try to make her sit on the potty and she doesn't need to go, she throws a huge fit. She is now holding it sometimes for 2-21/2 hours and has woken up dry in the morning a few times as well.
As for poop, she almost always goes in the evenings, so we make it a practice that as soon as she is done eating dinner, we go and sit on the potty, and pull out her basket of books. I usually look at my watch and see what time it is and give it 10 minutes and we read books and point out objects which has also helped her language development. She always goes within about 5 if she needs to and goes 95% of the time right after dinner. I can tell when one is coming because she always passes a lot of gas right before. She much prefers to poop in the potty than her diaper now and so do we!
Right now we are trying to ask less and let her tell us more. I still ask about every hour because she really doesn't tell me, but she is starting to hold it until we go to the potty. Many times at the grocery store she has told me she needed to go and I told her she would have to wait, because it is as we are leaving, and she does wait until we get home.
We have had our fair share of frustrations as we all figure this out, but my advice is to stick with it and not give up if your child is showing true signs of readiness. Letting them go back into diapers because you are getting frustrated after they have made forward progress can make it that much harder the next time. As far as Pull Ups go, they haven't hindered us thus far. Maybe she would train faster without them, but I want it to be a pleasant experience for all of us so I am willing to work with her a little longer. I am sure though there are some kids that Pull Ups just don't work for.
Also, each child is so unique. Devin is really young and people kept telling me she was too young to potty train. I decided to follow her lead because she was showing most of the signs of readiness. If she wasn't ready, she wouldn't have come this far this fast so I am glad I followed her lead and didn't listen to all the people discouraging us, which there has been plenty of. I didn't push her in any way. We started giving her the opportunity to go on the potty and she loved it and accepted it with open arms. Had she fought it in the beginning, I would have backed down and tried again in a few months when she showed more signs of being ready.
We have not used a free standing potty seat at all. Devin has a conversion seat on the potty we all use. I had issues with the thought of constantly trying to clean a small potty, and also thought it would be an easier transition in the long run to just have her start on the big potty. We have had to use a normal size potty away from our house many times and it has never been an issue. The only time we have used our portable conversion seat away from home is usually only when there is poop involved and a long time to sit on the potty is needed.
This week she has been wearing panties all day and only a diaper at night. So far she has had no accidents in her panties. I can't tell you how proud I am of my little love!
