more potty talk

Little Missy is very nearly potty-trained! Hubby and I are so excited to stop paying for diapers. And we're proud of our little girl being a big girl, of course.

About six weeks ago Little Missy was lying on the floor as I changed her diaper. She looks up at me and says "I want to go potty in the toilet."

"You do??"

"Mm!" She nodded, all wide-eyed and positive.

So after we picked up G from preschool the three of us headed to Wal-Mart where she picked out her own undies (Tinkerbell and princesses) and G picked out some additional ones for himself (Batman, I think). We came home, Little Missy sat on the toilet, I sat on the floor in front of her and G sat on my lap. And we sat there for 20 minutes. Finally she peed! And G and I clapped and stood on our feet and told her what a big girl she was. She nodded, all wide-eyed and positive and quietly happy for herself. And she put on her first pair of undies. Every 15 minutes I would take her to the potty to try again. She would happily sit on the toilet for 15 minutes each time, get up having not peed in the toilet, and promptly pee in the kitchen or the hallway. The next morning the same thing. So I put away the undies and brought back the diapers.

Last week, on Thanksgiving, she told her Daddy and me that she wanted to wear undies. John Rosemond says that when your child is ready you have to jump on it or else she might not be ready again for a long time. So Hubby and I let her wear undies to her Auntie's house. Where she peed on the floor shortly after arriving. Thanks for understanding, Sis and Todd-in-Law! And the diapers came out once again.

Monday morning, after her bath, she told me she wanted to potty on the toilet. I took her in and SHE DID! Promptly. She finally understands the idea of holding it and releasing it at the appropriate time. She's had a few accidents, but a few accidents in three days compared to lots of doing it correctly in the same time period, I consider the process nearly finished.

So my advice for potty training is to wait and wait and wait until your child has given up on you and is practically walking into the bathroom, pulling down their diaper and sitting on the toilet with a "Yeah,-I've-got-this,-Mom" look. With G, I looked at him one day and realized "Holy cow! You are going to be THREE IN A MONTH!" So I took him out, bought him undies, M&M's for a reward, and told him that he was no longer wearing diapers. He only had one accident. I'm telling you, sometimes my procrastination pays off. It certainly made potty-training easy.