Day 1
Started off very positive - talked about "bye bye" diapers and big girl panties and going pee pee in the potty. Annika sounded agreeable with all of this. . .
After 3 accidents in the first 3 hours, I was already starting to question myself. . .
NOTE 2: As an applied behavior analyst and one who specializes in teaching appropriate behaviors for a living, I felt very confident. However, as I am learning, it is much more difficult when it is your own child - I question myself at every turn and lack all objectivity.
To add to the fun, Pumpkin (the kitty) threw up in the middle of the living room - I think we will need to get the carpet shampooed after this process.
After a long day of practice potty visits, talking about using the potty, dry pant checks, etc. the final score was:
1 pee in the potty - 9 accidents.
Day 2
We started off on a good note - a pee pee in the potty; however, this did not last.
NOTE 3: I finally broke down around 10:30-11:00am (after the 3rd accident of the day). I had to take Piper and hide in our room so that I could cry for a bit. The last thing I wanted was for Annika to feel like she was doing anything bad to make mommy sad - I recognized that this is a difficult skill and not something that should be learned in a matter of a day, but please refer to NOTE 1.
What we learned: Annika really doesn't like juice, can "hold it" for at least 4 hours, and appeared to have an aversion to using the potty.
End of the day: 2 - a lot!
Day 3
Annika usually wakes us up around 6am. When I woke up at 7am, I started to wonder if she was hiding out in her room so that she didn't have to continue with this potty training stuff. She was actually sleeping - I think this process has been difficult for her too.
We tried some different tactics today - keep her completely naked and keep the potty about 2 feet from her tooshie at all times. Unfortunately, she had one small accident and it was apparent that she was holding it . . .
Tried a couple of things to make it fun (beyond all of the fun things we had already tried):
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| Play-Doh Nikki on the potty! |
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| The desired outcome! |
Play-Doh potty was fun and Annika asked me to do it again later, but it didn't seem to do the trick.
She loves seeing herself on the camera, so I thought a picture of her on her potty might help motivate . . .
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| She looks pretty happy . . . |
NOPE!
Annika was going behind the curtains when it was time to do her business in her diaper, so Ken thought maybe we could put the potty behind the curtains - hence, the Potty-Fort!
As soon as we set this up and we told her to try, she went right in and did her business! HOORAY! She followed our directions a couple more time to go and was very excited and successful! Then, she started telling us that she needed to go and actually going! HOORAY!
Alas, we ended the day with Annika wanting to stay back there and make more poopy; we actually had to cut her off!
Day 3 score: a lot - only 1 accident!
Tomorrow
Since we said "bye bye" to our diapers, I am sending her to daycare in panties (with lots of extras!) and no diapers. Luckily, they are very supportive and I have faith that they have helped many little ones through this challenging time in their life. But probably without Potty-Forts . . .
Reflection
Now that we seem to be through the most difficult part (I hope), I am ecstatic! However, I know that I need to relax a bit as we take on each of these endeavors. As you can guess from my NOTES, I have some very specific ideas of how things are going to go and tend to blame myself when they don't go as expected. Luckily, in retrospect, I can look back on the last 3 days and laugh (or at least smile) . . .
Finally, many thanks to all of our family and friends for their words of encouragement and to my husband for keeping a positive and supportive attitude through the last few days (and for the ground breaking idea of a Potty-Fort).
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