This has been quite a week. Last week the decision was made to dedicate this week to potty training the girls - no short trips to the store, no story time at the library, basically no leaving the house. We were going to dedicate all our time to potty training - period!
It is always good to have dreams.....
The week started off as I had anticipated - lots of messes and much fussing about the messes, but the girls were thrilled with the fact that they could earn stickers for their Potty Posters. Anna actually went in the potty twice and Ashlyn went once. Well - that was the beginning of the end.
Ashlyn decided she wanted NO part of the potty and started "holding it" for several hours which brought back horrible memories of all the issues we had with her and her surgery in May. After the second day of her screaming at me because she was holding it and would not get near a potty I decided to call her pediatric urologist and our pediatrician. Anna was also holding it, but not for near as long and she was not as traumatized by the whole experience as Ashlyn was. I was basically insane after the end of the second day and there were many moments where I found my head in my oven, but after my husband drug me out of there I was fine (kinda).
The urologist and our pediatrician called back with the same advice - don't push Ashlyn any more, but continue with Anna as maybe that would make Ashlyn want to do it more (nothing like peer pressure). So that is what we have been doing. We introduced M & M's to the mix on the second day and that has been a REAL motivator. Since Anna gets one if she sits on the potty for 5 minutes (and she does a great job at sitting for LONG periods of time) then Ashlyn has been more willing to try out the potty sitting process. They get 5 M&M's if they use the bathroom on the potty and a huge parade occurs. Yes - I'm sure many of you are laughing at the thought of us marching around our house singing "Pee Pee" songs at the top of our lungs. I can live with that.
So we are now on day five of potty training boot camp and things are going okay - Anna is still doing a great job and we aren't pushing Ashlyn, but she is coming around. Wish us luck!
2 comments:
Oh man, I so remember the days. We bribed with stickers, m&m's, parties, etc etc. The thing that finally got him to go was a baby doll that he "taught" to go potty (thank you Dr. Phil). We took one Saturday and stripped him naked, pumped him full of fluids and when he started doing the peepee dance we asked him if he thought the baby needed to go potty. He sat her on the little toilet and then we asked if he wanted to try. Lo and behold it worked! The other part of the process took a few more months. Good luck! Sounds like they're more encourageable than mine was.
Yeah! What she said! ^^
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