Potty Training Archives - Daily Rebecca

Keepin’ It Real {eating a slice of humble pie}

February 6, 2013

Remember when I bragged about how great potty training was going?

Yeah, well maybe I shouldn’t have jinxed myself because the last 48 hours have sucked.

Accidents right and left, tantrums about having to sit on the potty, requests to wear a diaper…

I’m so frustrated.

I’m normally a very patient parent. It has honestly surprised me that I have such a high tolerance for toddler antics and general day to day crap. I can usually navigate it all very calmly.

Yesterday that was NOT the case.

It’s comical to me that it happened to be yesterday that I was on the verge of my own tantrum all day. The few days before yesterday had been SO GREAT.

Avery has been eating well and sleeping great. Grace has been really well behaved and was using the potty like a champ. I have been able to coordinate the girls’ afternoon naps to give me time to do laundry, clean the house, make banana bread, blog and even take naps of my own. I’ve even gotten out of the house with them both in tow which has allowed me to run errands and grocery shop.

I may have been giving myself a giant pat on the back for being so awesome ;)

Hahahahahahahahaha!

I spent all day yesterday choking on a big fat piece of humble pie.

Just when we think we have it all together things tend to fall apart, don’t they?

It started when I asked Grace to try sitting on the potty and she cried in protest. I assumed she didn’t have to go, so I sat down to feed Avery. Right in the middle of the feeding I heard Grace run out of her room crying.

She peed her pants.

Then she tracked it out of her room and all the way down the hall.

I had JUST asked her if she had to go and she threw a fit about sitting on the potty, but then she walked into her room and peed her pants.

What the heck?!

I literally stood in the hall and prayed out loud that God would give me patience and help me not to explode.

Meanwhile Grace was standing in the bathroom sobbing. I made her take off her wet underwear and sit on her potty which of course infuriated her.

I still had Avery latched onto me and I had to figure out what to do first. Clean Grace up? Clean up the giant puddle and trail of pee?

I just kept praying over and over that God would calm me down. It seemed like I was having a level 10 reaction to a level 2 problem.

That’s never a good sign.

I decided to unlatch poor Avery mid-feed and lay her down while I cleaned up the pee and then cleaned up Grace.

I was still so angry.

Any patience I had for Grace or the potty training process had completely vanished and I was an irritable, short-tempered mess.

For the sake of my sanity, I put Grace in a pull-up after I got her cleaned up.

But I was still angry.

We had to run errands in the afternoon and even though we got everything done that needed to be done, we ran out of time to go to the mall for me to shop for a few things I wanted.

I was on a mission and I had zero tolerance for any push-back from Grace. I lost my temper when she cried about her car seat straps bugging her (which she does every.single.time. she gets in the car). I didn’t want to play when we got home and I was so frustrated with everything that I withdrew emotionally and barely survived until my sister came to babysit last night.

I’ve been trying to make sense of it all and I’m coming to realize that God wants me to lean on Him for my strength. I’m an independent person who almost always thinks I can do everything on my own. If things get out of hand, I just try harder and I can usually get back in control.

That’s not how God wants me to live.

He wants me to lean on Him and turn to Him for strength, patience and grace. To be the parent I want to be requires that I seek Him when things get tough. It does NOT mean that I dig my heels in and try harder on my own.

I must believe deep down that God doesn’t really care about the mundane problems of a stay at home mom, but that’s simply not true.

He says that His grace is sufficient for me and that His power is made perfect in my weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

We are promised that our God will supply all our need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).

His grace is sufficient
His power is made perfect in my weakness
He will supply all my need

How easy it is to forget all of that.

How stubborn I am that I always want to do it my way.

How great is my God who loves me anyway.

4 Weeks In: {Potty Training and Photo Shoots}

January 29, 2013

Yesterday marked 4 weeks into my journey with two little ones and things are going really well.

Thanks to wonderful friends and family for the meals they brought that helped me get into a groove before having to worry about dinner every night. Thanks also to Baby Wise for helping me get my groove back.

Avery is doing great! She’s eating like a champ, taking regular naps and even sleeping decent stretches at night. Praise the Lord for giving mama sleep! :)

Grace has totally embraced her new role as big sister. Aside from some tantrums early on girlfriend has seemed to grow up over night! She’s talking more than ever and using new words every day. She takes after me in that she’s very observant and notices every little thing.

The other night at dinner she asked Andy if he got a haircut. He HAD gotten a haircut the night before, but he got home after she went to bed, so she hadn’t seen him since before his appointment! I don’t always notice his haircuts right away, so we were shocked that she noticed!

She always notices when I get dressed up (probably because I’m in lounge wear 97% of the time) and she’ll gently caress my necklace and tell me how much she loves my earrings. I’d also be hard-pressed to paint my toenails without her getting all excited and begging me to paint hers too.

I love her vibrant little spirit and it’s been fun to see her develop into a little girl before our eyes.

Not so fun have been her “big girl” messy diapers. YUCK!

With a capital Y!

I was hopeful that she’s be interested in potty training this summer after she turned 2, but even with a cool new potty, pretty big girl undies and the promise of M&M’s (a.k.a. chocolate treats) she wanted nothing to do with it. She’d cry when I suggested trying the potty and if I ever did get her to have a seat on it, she’s freak out before letting herself actually go.

I wasn’t in a huge hurry to train her because diapers are easier for the most part…no accidents or rushing to find a potty. But lately when her diapers have gotten particularly gross and have been leaking on her clothes and pajamas, I decided enough was enough. I was ready and I think she was too.

For a couple of days I told her that she was a big girl now and that big girls used the potty. I emphasized that Avery is a baby and that’s why she wears diapers, but Grace was a big girl and they wear big girl undies.

I also decided to invest in a little “motivation”. I’m not one for bribing kids to do things that they ought to just do, but I thought the potty process might benefit from a little incentive. At Target the other day we picked out another pack of big girl undies that were Disney Princess themed and we also grabbed a Cinderella Barbie.

Grace LOOOVES Cinderella and is practically obsessed with her glass slippers and crown so I knew this Barbie would be something she’d really love. I told her that Cinderella Barbie was going to stay in the box and live in our bathroom until Grace used the potty 3 times in a row.

The next morning we got started with the 3 potty use countdown. I took Grace’s diaper off and was about to suit her up in a new pair of Cinderella big girl undies, but she stopped me from putting them on and asked to use the potty first.

I obliged and what do you know, she sat down and went poop and pee immediately!

I was blown away!

All those months of being afraid of the potty, not wanting to sit on it, peeing in her pants when we tried them on and here she was, the first morning after Cinderella Barbie moved into the bathroom and she was going on the potty!

Since it’s hard for a two and a half year old to understand how many times she has to do something before getting her reward, I wrote up a simple chart showing her that the 1st time she used the potty she’d get M&M’s, the 2nd time she she’d get more M&M’s and the 3rd time she’d get the Barbie.

After jumping around and praising her, we texted Daddy and called Grandma to brag about the good news. Grace loved her M&M’s and was excited to get a check mark on her potty sheet.

A little while later, she used the potty again, got more M&M’s and another check on her sheet!

After that was nap time so we used a diaper for that (I’m not ready to change sheets all the time yet) and then we had a playdate with some friends so we used a diaper for that too.

Last night she didn’t have to go before bed, so we just diapered her up and tucked her in. This morning her diaper was pretty wet, but didn’t leak. We got her into a pair of big girl undies right when she woke up and later this morning she went potty for the 3rd time and got to open her Cinderella!

She’s so excited about the doll and I can tell that she loves the feeling of her new undies as opposed to the bulky diapers which have been bothering her for a while.

We haven’t had any accidents yet, but I know they are inevitable and just part of the process. I’m really excited that we’ve made some progress and I’m looking forward to being able to flush her yucky messes rather than having to deal with gross diapers!

Avery turned 4 weeks old yesterday! I can’t believe how fast the weeks have passed, but in many ways it also feels like she’s always been a part of our family.

I can’t exactly figure out her temperament just yet, but so far she seems kind of easy going. She doesn’t get too bent out of shape about messy diapers, she lets Grace hug and squeeze her without putting up much of a fuss and as long as she’s not tired or hungry, she’s pretty content to chill out just about anywhere.

When Grace was 2 months old I took a few pictures of her in this cute black and white dress my friend Kortney bought so I thought I’d so the same thing with little Miss Avery when I saw the dress in her closet this morning :)

Grace in black and white at 8 weeks old :)

The hair sticking straight up in the back cracks me up!

Mom, I’m SO over this photo shoot!

Random Catch Up and Potty Drama

December 3, 2012

So my month of thankfulness posts is over and from what I can tell by my readership stats, it wasn’t a big hit! Lol

That’s ok.

It was good for me to spend the month reflecting on all that I have to be grateful for. I originally planned to post every single day as a kind of “undercover” commitment to NaBloPoMo but it just didn’t happen so I’m glad I didn’t make some grandiose promise of daily posting up front.

No one needs to hear me apologizing up and down like I did with my very embarrassing Weigh-In Wednesday series. My sister and I crack up regularly about what a flop that was!

But now I’m back to regular ramblings and I’m kind of relieved. There will be lots that I want to capture this month and it will be nice to just spill it out.

Baby girl #2 is due in only 27 days! I can hardly believe it.

I’m starting to get really uncomfortable, so I’ve transitioned from worrying about life with 2 littles to just wanting her out and figuring it may be tiring but at least I won’t be so dang uncomfortable.

I could eat those words when the time comes, but for now I’m glad to be less anxious about having a newborn around.

Grace is growing up by the second! Her communication and imagination skills have surged in the past few weeks. I love to listen to her playing with her toys and it blows my mind when she pretends about things like “the woods” and “the garden” even though we never even talk about places like that. A couple weeks ago she stuck a large super-ball into the top of a toilet paper roll and called it an ice cream cone. I about died from the cuteness and creativity!

She’s also recently started to hate the feeling of her diaper. Mostly when it’s wet because it gets lumpy, but most recently she complains about it even when it’s totally fresh and dry. I can understand how uncomfortable it must be since I know I’d hate to have a bulky diaper between my legs all day, but I’m kind of surprised by how this discomfort has come out of nowhere after having worn a diaper constantly for over 2 years!

It’s obviously a sign that she’s ready to start potty training which is exciting, but comes with it’s own set of challenges…

She loves the free feeling of her “big girl undies” but gets all freaked out about sitting on the potty to actually pee or poop. So she just pees in her pants making a mess and then ask for a diaper which she freaks out about because it’s so bulky.

Vicious cycle!

Don’t even get me started on pooping in the potty. She totally knows when she has to poop because it’s preceded by a series of very loud toots (which, for the record, is totally hilarious). She’s even willing to sit on the potty, holding the jar of treats, tooting loudly and accumulating praise from us for her good efforts.

But the second the poop urge becomes real, she hops off the potty and demands a diaper.

Oy.

I know I’m not the first mother to go through this kind of rigamarole, but it’s throwing me for a loop. I guess the answer is probably patience and persistence while maintaining a willingness to clean up endless accidents.

Part of me just wants to forget the whole training thing and keep her in a diaper until she’s smart enough to understand the whole concept and just start wearing underwear.

But at the same time I get creeped out when three and four year olds are still wearing diapers so I guess I have to suck it up!

Any tips from veteran mamas??

I’m all ears!