The time: March 4th, 1:00 pm
Let me set the scene.
Before you scroll down in eager anticipation, I want to sincerely apologize to those of you who were sitting on the edge of your seat, all weekend, breathlessly awaiting an update to the Boogie potty-training chronicles. I know… it’s that serious, ha!
Syl sent me a link to a 3 day potty training program which was extra hyperlink heavy… ain’t nobody got time for that. So I forked over the $14 and downloaded the official ‘3 Day Potty Training’ e-book by Lora Jensen. It was a quick and pleasant read and I was excited to get started.
Rules and Tools
Per Lora’s instructions, we bought all the panties ever made (anticipating hella accidents), juice boxes and popsicles (for her to turn to pee… frequently, giving her ample chances to practice), and plenty of celebratory trinkets.
- First rule was that I let her pick out all of the above. The little one has to take ownership, which means we also threw out every last pull-up, together.
- Stay by her side 24/7 watching her warning signs (you know…that face). Then make sure she goes to the pot even if she has an accident so she knows where it is supposed to go.
- No negative reinforcement. Boogie is already a diva –I don’t need her to be anal retentive as well (according to Freud).
- Tons of positive reinforcement and praise
- Don’t keep asking “do you need to go?” just continuously remind her that she needs to tell YOU when she needs to go.
- Don’t sit her on the pot and tell her to “try”. You can’t force shit. Literally.
- Let her watch you. Of course, that means you’ll get praise too whenever you go.
- Make it fun!
Our Experience:
In an oh-so-typical State College, PA blizzard, we took a quick trip to Tarjay and ended up with a gang of Dora panties, a variety of juice boxes, purple balloons, oranges and Oreos. When we got home, I gave her the ‘big girl’ talk about using the potty and told her that our goal was to keep Dora dry! Together we threw away all of her pull-ups, including the one on her butt. She excitedly slid into her first pair of big girl panties and in true diva form, headed to the mirror to check out the new digs. It wasn’t two minutes later- “Oh no mama, Dora wet!” No worries. We put on a new pair, those were wet 10 minutes later… the third pair was wet within the hour. Things continued in that vein for the next few hours. But despite the numerous accidents, I could tell she was really interested and determined to master it. Later that night I could hear her in the bathroom. I peeked around the corner, simultaneously asking, ‘what are you doing?’ Startled, she jumped and said ‘nothing!’ She was cleaning the bathroom floor with a too small piece of tissue… apparently she had just missed the pot and didn’t want me to know. She looked so disappointed.
By day 2 homegirl skipped telling me she needed to potty and was walking in there, stepping up on the stool and doing it herself. She was beaming. She only had 4 accidents that day. On day 3, she only had 1 accident and it was during nap time! She had ZERO accidents yesterday (day 4) and hasn’t had an overnight accident yet.
She’s so proud of herself and loves listening to me brag to folks on the phone. We involved the STL fam, calling them up whenever she was on the pot so they could cheer her on as well. Every successful potty attempt was met with a balloon fight, a snack of her choice and lots of praise. It was a fun weekend. And this morning (day 5), I’m proud to say Boogie has on yesterday’s drawers…in this case, not trifling but a triumph!
Later Gators,
Nik
P.S. The real success story here is that I didn’t pass the hell out blowing up all of those celebratory ballons. Apparently I have no lung capacity…smh.
