Friday, April 23, 2010

Learning to Potty


The past few months Ellie has been interested in the potty. She has asked to sit on the potty, and recently is starting to want to sit more frequently. She finally has used the bathroom on the potty, number 2. It occurred Wednesday night right before bedtime, Zach and I were shocked! We were super excited, got out the potty chart, put a sticker on the chart, and gave her a lollipop (which took FOREVER to eat).

I'm just not sure if I'm ready for this next step. I'm really excited that my little toddler is desiring to be a big girl, but it's exhausting! Now that she's wanting to sit on the potty more frequently, we are having to go in the store, the library, the gym. Now I don't think I would mind so much if she actually did go potty, but this is not the case. So I have to lug everybody into the bathroom, take off the pants and diaper, sit there for 3-5 minutes waiting for something to happen while making sure Ellie doesn't fall into the toilet and Ainsley is somewhat entertained, then we skip the wiping and flushing since nothing occurred and wash our hands (which Ellie is still not too good at). It just stinks to go through all the trouble when nothing happens! However, I highly enjoyed this morning after trying to potty and asking her to get a diaper, she came in with two pairs of underwear on. Of course both of them were on completely wrong (one was up around her tummy, the other covering her bottom, but both of them were put on with both legs through one leg hole). It seems that most of the time at home we can rarely have a good moment to potty. I either have to stop what I'm doing (i.e. cooking), or leave her on the potty because Ainsley starts to fuss or cry. This afternoon right before her nap, she runs into the kitchen while I'm washing a few dishes and hands me her dirty diaper (fresh poo inside). She then proceeds to tell me she wants to poo poo in the potty... she'll get it soon enough. Oh boy, if only it was easy...

Not only am I not ready, I also feel like she's not quite ready. She doesn't quite understand the "got to go" feeling, but I don't want to discourage from using the bathroom. I'm conflicted in what to do. I guess I'll suck it up and deal with the inconvenience, she'll learn eventually (but the question is, how long will it take? can I deal with it that long?).

Let me know if you have any tips, I would love to hear thoughts on this.

2 comments:

DeeRex said...

hey guys...it's quite an exciting time when your kid wants to use the potty. I remember that - all the excitement and hope and looking forward to no more diapers. And then the frustration because it took MONTHS after the first time using the potty. Hang in there! It will def pay off soon. One recommendation - Dana uses the foam hand sanitizer from bath and body works. Hannah loves it and it makes hand cleaning so much easier after trips.
The Baby Alive doll also really helped her learn to go. We never got into the "feeding" the baby so it never actually "went" like it's designed to do; but when the doll talked and made -noises- Hannah loved it.

Zack said...

Laura,

Josiah has been really interested in the potty lately, even though he's probably still a little too young to be trained.

But it got Steph and I looking into resources, and the folks at GrowingKids.org have a great (free online) video that was really encouraging to us.

We'll probably go this route when the time comes:

http://www.growingkids.org/potty-training-1-2-3/

We've been using resources from Growing Kids since day 1 and it has been a huge help to us.