Potty Training 101

The first rule of potty training is - well there are no rules, anything goes.  I have successfully potty trained two little girls and both methods were completely different and unplanned.  Summer was 2 years, 2 months, 2 weeks and some days.  I decided to try to potty train her because my mother in law was coming to town.  Great reason right?  I put a pair of panties on her, she peed in them and continued on her day.  I then did bare butt (thankfully we had all tile downstairs).  She started to pee down her legs, I stopped her and ran her to the baby potty that was next to the couch and she basically got the hang of it.  I still worked at this time so I worked with her that weekend and when I went back to work on Monday Kris continued her training.  I would say it took her about 3 days and I don't remember many accidents.  We continued to put on diapers when she napped and slept but she was always dry so eventually we stopped.  She has only had 1 or 2 night time accidents that I can remember.

A few weeks ago we were shopping in Target and I saw the cutest pair of training undies.  They are like normal cloth underwear except thicker.  I bought a 3 pack.  A few days after that Summer wanted to put Pepper on the toilet so we did and I decided (I think on a random Monday) to start trying to train her.  She was only 20 months old and I had my doubts.  She peed on the toilet, pooped on the toilet, then peed in her training underwear.  I was ready to give up and put her back in a diaper.  Kris took the girls swimming and Pepper asked to get out to come in and go pee pee so I decided to give her another chance.  Over the next 5 days it was back and forth, she would have an accident, and only 1 each day, and I was ready to quit.  I am such a quitter!  On the seventh day (ironic?) she did not have any accidents.  It has been at least another week and not only has she continued to stay dry during the day, but at naps and night time as well.  Thinking back now it almost seems too easy.  Of course at the time I was ready to quit after each accident, and I think she had 6 in 6 days.  I guess those aren't bad odds.

When she has to go to the bathroom she runs up to me all excited and says PEE PEES.  We run into the bathroom, my method is to take her bottoms off and let her stratal the big toilet.  She does her business (both pee and poo) and I taught her how to "pat" herself dry, tho I usually do it for her.  Then she gets to flush the toilet and wash her hands.

In a way I am too lazy to clean out the kid potty, I just think that is gross, plus she cannot take on and off her own clothes yet and I have not encouraged it :o)  I don't mind running into the bathroom a few times a day, even if all she does is fart - hey she will figure it out eventually.

I am still in awe at how young she is to be trained already.  She is funny about going potty too, sometimes she runs up to me and says PEE PEES and when I say, "do you have to go pee pees?" she says NOOOOO in a very deep voice.  While annoying and cute, she definitely has a funny little personality.  Once she does pee successfully into the toilet she says "I did it" :o)