Mary Graham

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I want a sucker!

The past month or so Elliott has been showing major interest in the toilet.  She wants to sit on it, she needs to go potty (but never does), or she wants to use the bathroom so she can wash her hands.  So I knew potty training was coming up and I was dreading it.  Adding even more to my dread was reading this eBook that my sister used and swore by.  It sounded exhausting and way too intense for me.  You literally have to be by your toddler’s side ALL THE TIME for three days.  Now I love my daughter, but that’s a little extreme.  Mommy needs a minute every once in a while and the idea that I was going to be following her around like a lost puppy was something I was not looking forward to.

Nonetheless, on Monday we started the process.  You have to throw away all the diapers (which I didn’t do because diapers are expensive so I just hid them all in the basement for baby #2 to use later) and then put big girl underwear on your kid and just wait for them to pee.  Every time they start to pee you have to run them into the bathroom and try to let them finish in the toilet.  If she gets any in the toilet at all, it’s a super big deal and you praise them and give them a reward.  I used M & M’s or Dum Dum suckers (which actually backfired, more on that later).

Monday was spent cleaning up one pee mess after another.  I was keeping track and Ellie peed ELEVEN times around the house.  She did manage to take a nap and not wet the bed, but that night around 2:30 she did wet the bed.  I was not looking forward to day two.  It started out the same, but I could tell that she was beginning to understand the feeling of needing to pee and then what would happen because of that sensation (which she had never known before since diapers are made to whisk all that pee away so they can’t feel it).  I could see her little mind processing the whole using-the-potty business.  She was becoming more likely to say she had to pee and by nap time at 11:30 she was starting to rack up the suckers (she was on number five by this point–bad call with the suckers, Mommy.  Next time I’ll stick to a few M & M’s.).  She made it through her nap dry and had one accident at 2:30 but since then, it’s been AMAZING.

We started Monday morning and by Tuesday afternoon you could tell she was potty trained.  I know that sounds insane, but I promise it’s true. She was acting like it was no big deal and that she had been using the big girl potty forever.  And now, at 9:15 on Thursday night, she is still accident-free.  She’s made it the past two nights without wetting the bed or even getting up to use the potty.  It’s been amazing.

I was completely stressed and anxious about potty training.  I liked the laziness (for me) and the convenience that came with her wearing diapers.  I didn’t like the price and, ultimately, that was what made me potty train her.  Baby Harper is due in March and it pains me to imagine paying for that many diapers.  And in the eBook the author said the perfect age was 22 months and Ellie will be 23 months in about a week.  I can’t believe how well it worked and I will definitely use this technique (no matter how exhausting it was) with the next kid.  Potty trained in two days? Yes, yes indeed.

(the treat bowl we used: “potty juice”, suckers, and M & M’s.  Ellie only drinks milk and water so it was a major deal for her to have juice while we potty trained.  She was supposed to drink lots to encourage lots of learning experiences so we introduced “potty juice” so she’d drink more.  They’re now put up and will only be brought out on “special” occasions.)
Drinking the delicious “potty juice”…I know, I know, it sounds disgusting, but it’s the best name I could come up with.
Workin’ it in some leg warmers.  I thought this idea was brilliant since she wasn’t allowed to wear pants while we were potty training and it was freezing in the house…but all the leg warmers did was trap the pee and it was pretty nasty getting those things off after an accident.  Lesson learned: fashion is not for potty training.
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Comments

  1. Stephen Henderson says

    July 11, 2011 at 4:14 am

    Good thing i’ll be at work, BAZINGA.

    Reply
  2. Becky Bee says

    July 11, 2011 at 1:27 pm

    Way to be Stephen. Great job Mary. I think I can handle two days or even threebut it sounds like we are going to have to rent a rug doctor after that. Did you use the regular toiet or a potty chair?

    Reply
  3. mary says

    July 11, 2011 at 5:58 pm

    We used a potty chair (super cheap ones from IKEA actually). We had one in each bathrom because you never know where you’ll be when pee strikes! And you’ll need to prepare mentally for this challenge (that sounds silly, but I’m serious!). It’s really hard work and is exhausting and then you’re done and she’s potty trained. It’s worth it.

    Reply
  4. Melinda J. says

    August 29, 2011 at 3:41 am

    Hm, my sister in law Shauna linked your blog on her post on FB that her little one Nora is potty trained. I have 3 yr old (38months) and have made great progress over the last month or so. My question is, has there been any more accidents? My older son never did backpedal when my second son was born (they are 39mos apart), but I have heard that they can do that if they want to be like the new baby and get all the attention. So, yes, I have heard of this method before, but didn’t want the mess. Any updates? What was the book you used? Does it say anything about trying it after trying to potty train? Thanks!

    Reply
  5. mary says

    August 31, 2011 at 11:52 pm

    The book I used was an eBook, it’s linked in the blog post. It’s been over eight months and we’ve probably had less than 12 accidents total. The book did have specific instructions when potty training a child when you’ve tried another method already, but I don’t remember it because it didn’t apply to me. I would highly recommend buying it and using it–it was well worth the money.

    Reply
  6. jamie @ [kreyv] says

    March 20, 2012 at 11:29 am

    Thanks for the info. This is pretty much what I did yesterday, and Stella made great progress. (I, too, got excited and overdid it on the Dum Dums at first!) The one thing I didn’t do is put her down for a nap/bed without a pull-up. Perhaps I should. It makes me so nervous, though!

    BTW, your daughter is adorable!

    Reply
  7. mary says

    March 20, 2012 at 1:16 pm

    Thanks Jamie–it’s funny seeing those pictures because it seems like she’s changed so much {tear}. I would go without a pullup for bedtime so you don’t have to potty train again for sleeping, just get it all out of the way at once. It really was worth all the hassle to just be done–good luck!

    Reply

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