Pulling up- November 18, 2012
Lookie what Charlotte and I bought during our weekly pilgrimage to Target!
Boom! That’s right, folks. We’ve decided to give the neglected little potty I purchased on a previous pilgrimage 6 months ago another try. Our pediatrician recommended that the parents of girls buy a potty at 18 months and start talking about it.
For the last 6 months that’s pretty much what she did. She would sit on it and brush her teeth. She would point to her Sesame Street buddies and talk to them. She would beg for her potty occasionally after seeing one of us perched on the commode. (This was no doubt after busting in uninvited.) She dropped a deuce twice, dribbled a few drops a handful of times. Good, but nothing consistent.
Now that she’s two, we’re going for it. I don’t want to push it, but she seems a little more ready.
The signs we’ve seen:
- She seems increasingly uncomfortable with a messy diaper. She reaches back there and tries to take it off if it’s soiled. (Ew, that cannot happen. Seriously.)
- She wants to sit on her potty more often.
- She was psyched about the Pull-Ups. She would not let me put a diaper on her after buying them. I tried to put on a diaper and she screamed, “No! Pull-Up!” She said, “Chalette big girl!” I told her if she wore it, then she had to sit on the potty and at least try. She was okay with that and we got a #1 out of it. Score!
I was ready to roll-up the rug and go for it with the three-day method, as crazy as it sounds. Greyson squashed that thought and the doctor agreed with him. She said she understood that some parents had great success with the three-day method, but that it was a tad extreme. She said that since Charlotte is a daycare kid, she will likely be potty trained pretty soon. The doctor went on to explain how in daycares, toddlers are typically put on a tight potty schedule. That, combined with positive peer pressure is a good way to get trained-up quick. Charlotte is scheduled to move from the “Toddlers” to the “Twos” class very soon. Potty training is a huge focus in that class. (God help those teachers! Remind me to get an excellent Christmas gift for them.)
So I think the plan for now is to put her in Pull-Ups with the rule that she must sit on the potty if she wears Pull-Ups. (I hope the novelty doesn’t wear off any time soon.) I like these guidelines from the Mayo Clinic. I mean, who am I to argue with them?
I am typically a Pampers mom. They did not have Pampers Easy-Ups in her size, so we went with the Huggies Pull-Ups. Do any of you have brand preference here? I am a terrible yuppie blog mom because I never cloth-diapered my child. But, I’m willing to give it a shot if cloth training pants work better. Any words of wisdom?
What method did you use? Am I reading all of her signs correctly? Am I doing this too soon? What do you all think?
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God bless the parents in the twos room. They are responsible for 90% of A’s potty training at 2 1/2. I just took him to school in underwear and they did the rest. I have no idea how I’m going to do it with E. GOOD LUCK!
Thanks. She’s SO ready to move up. She kind of rules that class b/c she’s the oldest by a few months. I’ll let you know how it goes.
No offense to the Pull-Ups/Easy-Ups, but I’m not a fan. They cost more than diapers and the kid has no consequences if they have an “accident.” We went cold turkey from diapers to underwear. We had told Travis when he pooped in the potty and was ready for underwear he could start wearing it. Santa brought him underwear at 2.5. Three weeks later he pooped in the potty for the first time and said he was ready. So we switched. He had one week of perfection. One week of accidents and I was ready to throw in the towel. But his teacher convinced me to give her a few more days and she’d get him back on track. And by the end of the week she did. And he was completely potty-trained. He did wear pull-ups at night for a while for night accidents. But I honestly don’t think that’s something they can control, they just have to grow out of peeing in their sleep. And he did at around 4.
Hey! This is good to know. Thanks! I feel like i’m going into this blind, honestly. I think Santa will have to bring her some panties. She’ll like that.
I don’t think it’s too early to potty-train, especially for a girl. They say girls “get it” much earlier than boys. Will potty-trained at 2.5. I don’t know how, either, because I tried all summer and then he stayed with my dad one week and it was done. I think he needed a dude to spear-head the movement (so to speak.)
I semi-agree about Pull-ups. They’re pretty expensive and kind of eradicate the consequence of going in one’s pants. I may have put Pull-ups on Will for a few days, then realized that it was crap (literally) and decided just to move him to underwear and let the chips fall where they may (I’m starting to enjoy the shit puns in this comment). That being said, if they work as a motivator for Charlotte, then use them, but real underwear might be even more of a motivator. Once Will picked out his Cars drawers, he was much more careful about accidents. He must’ve felt somewhat wrong about taking a dump on Mater.
That being said, like Heather, we do use Pull-ups, but only overnight because Will’ll occasionally have an accident. They say that kids (boys especially) don’t neurologically develop the ability to sense the urge and awaken during sleep until they’re older. Will’s 3.5, so I’m hoping that 4 will be our magic age too.
But yeah, go for it. The house smells SO MUCH BETTER once they potty train. There was a brief moment where Will was trained and John was still on breast milk and our house lost that “human waste in the trashcan” smell that had plagued it for some time. Good luck!
Ha! “Spear-head” Love it! (Your shit puns are also hilarious.) I think we’ll try the Pull-Ups a few weeks and then try panties for Christmas.
Oh – one other thing. We had an M&M jar and he got one M&M for peeing in the potty and two for pooping in the potty for a few weeks after we switched to underwear. I was worried how we’d ever stop the M&M rewards but eventually he just forgot about them.
I’ve heard about the M&M thing. Hmm…might be good to try. I may try stickers too. She loves stickers. I just bought the “cool alert” version of Pull-Ups during my lunch break to see if that makes any difference and feels less like a diaper. Any luck with those?
I’ve never used the cool alert ones since we only used the pull-ups at night. But it does seem like that would help make her more aware and uncomfortable when she pees in it. Like someone else said – *we* didn’t use pull-ups to pottytrain but if Charlotte is excited about them and its a good motivator for her – go for it! As with every other aspect of parenting, there are a million+1 opinions on potty-training and lots of different and good methods to use.
We just potty trained Stella (she turns 2 in a few weeks)! Well, we still have the occasional “number2” accident but no more wet accidents. We did the 3-4 days in cloth underwear without leaving the house (seriously, shoot me…..I was raging from “cabin fever” in less than a day) and it was pretty successful.
The book we read (Pottywise- same authors of Babywise) suggested M&M’s and other sweets to motivate. Well, that backfired on us as we NEVER give her candy. So she just would get so fixated on getting the candy so she was missing the whole lesson, ended up on a sugar high and melted into a hot mess when we wouldn’t give one to her…..we switched to treating her with fruit, yogurt covered raisins, and animal crackers.
When we are out and about, I put her in the Gerber brand cloth training pants (more fabric in the crotch area) so if she does have an accident, it won’t be dripping down her leg. I also have a travel potty (collapisble and easy to use in the car and also to carry in the store to use on a big toilet) that has plastic liners. So I make her go potty before we leave the house, again in the to-go potty in the car once we get to destination, then once again as we leave the destination before putting her in the car seat.
So far, so good! Also, a good point I read in the book is to ask them if they are “clean and dry” every 5-10 minutes and reward them if they are. The ultimate goal is to stay clean and dry so reward them then and then double reward them when they use the potty. Makes sense
I still put her in disposable pullups for naptime and overnight.
Good luck! It can get frustrating at times and I think I shouted “really? seriously? this is never going to end” but it does and it takes time!
Wow! Go Stella! Before age 2! That’s huge, Kim! I am definitely getting the portable seat for Charlotte. I’ll have to check out the Gerber training pants. I’m going to try stickers as a reward. She LOVES stickers. Here goes nothing!
I’ve potty trained two kids now. My method was to do nothing except have the potty and undies there. The more I tried to get either kid to use the potty the worse it was. I would just occasionally say “Hey do you want to sit on the potty?” or “Do you want to wear undies today?” Then one day they both just decided they were ready. That is seriously it. It was one day and they were in undies from then on with few accidents. They both never used pull-ups again. (Except for at night with my son because he wet the bed until he was 4.5). I personally think pull-ups during the day confuse them. They think they are big kids because they don’t wear diapers but they still wet themselves. They need to feel the discomfort of wet clothes so they understand why they need to go to the potty. Pull-ups keep the moisture away from their bodies and their clothes dry. I will say my method takes longer since you are waiting for them. Mine were both closer to 3 when they were finally trained.
Totally agree! We took the same approach and my first son decided he was ready at 2.5. My second son is approaching 2.5 but I’m not sure he’s ready yet. We’ll see.
I need Greyson to read these comments. He is not in favor of the underwear thing. I think Santa will bring Charlotte some panties and we’ll go from there. We’ll practice with the Pull Ups until then.
[…] She’s been doing okay, but we’ haven’t been hard-core potty training yet. She freakin’ loves her Pull-Ups. I’m now convinced Pull-Ups are just more expensive, glorified diapers. I think they had […]