It’s official! My last little one is now potty trained. I have to admit that I am a bit sad about this as well. It means no more wonderful fluffy bums like this:
Sarah wearing our favorite Lalabye Baby Diaper: the Spray Pal Exclusive-Goodnight Moon
We have been potty learning off and on for about six months. I can honestly say the inconsistency was my fault. There were times where we would work on it all day, however, I wouldn’t go back to it for almost a month. But since we are settled into our new home, I decided get back on the horse. I literally started going full fledged with this two days ago. First I started with the potty training personality quiz (yes they have those!). Finding out their potty training personality, is helpful in determining the best way to go about potty learning and what to expect during the process as well. Sarah turned out to be a squirrel. I also decided to try out the Pull Ups Time To Potty app, and I have to tell you that was the best idea ever. After a quick sign up, I set her wake hours and the frequency (we did every 35 minutes).
For the first half of the morning, she didn’t use the bathroom. However when it came time for nap (I decided to be brave and let her nap in her underwear) I told her to call me if she had to use the bathroom so I could take her out of her crib. She said “okay mommy” and went to sleep. Within an hour, she was calling me and I took her to the potty and she went. She easily went back to sleep and after nap was over, it was nothing but progress from there. She consistently went about every hour, and she even wore her panties to bed that first night. Of course she woke up several times to use the bathroom, but I didn’t mind because it meant no wet sheets in the morning! Day two and three went equally as well. By the end of day three, I decided to officially declare her potty trained! (She is still in a crib, so I guess the next step is converting to a toddler bed).
How we kept her motivated
This was the easy part! There is the awesome Huggies Pull Ups “Potty Dance” video. Every time she went potty, we YouTube’d the video and played it. It was kind of a reward in itself. She got to the point where she would grab our Roku remote, hand it to me and say “potty dance mommy”. I did throw in an M&M or two each trip on days two and three. I mean at that point it was well earned.
This happened honestly a lot quicker than I expected. And while I am sad that my last one is not out of diapers, I am excited that it really feels as if she did this on her own. We are still working on getting her to pull up her pants and underwear alone, as well as climbing up on the potty (the stool we bought is still too short for her to reach the potty)…but I’m not going to rush that right now!
Go Sarah!! And check out her potty dance moves!! (although she wasn’t as enthused here as she usually is!)
Love of impromptu dance parties, 80’s cartoons, and horizontal life pauses (aka naps); Natasha Brown is a stay at home mom of 4 kids, and wife to one lucky guy! In her spare time, she is co-editor of Grits & Grace, as well as editor for The Mother Hustler Blog and Creative Director for the Mother Hustler podcast.
