Remember my post back in January about this little adventure?
And remember how it ended in....well....what's the word....
FAILURE?
Oh yeah, I remember.
Since then I stuck her back in diapers and decided to try potty training again when she turned 3.
People would ask her age.
I'd say, "She's almost three."
Eden would then reply, "And when I'm three, I can do potty training!"
Then she turned three. The next day I said, "Guess what? You're three! What happens when you are three?!?"
*Silence*
Bow her head down and walk away.
....Great....
But this story has a HAPPY ENDING. :)
It was a bit of a challenge cause one "method" would work for a while, then we'd need to do something new, and then change it again when she got tired of that method.
Method 1:
I put her in cute underwear and told her she could get a treat if she went potty in the big girl potty. She was somewhat motivated. But that faded relatively quickly.
Method 2:
We reminded her that when you learn to go potty in the big girl potty that you no longer get "owie bummies" and need to use "bum cream". (She had that experience not too long ago and didn't like that at all.) That helped a little, but that faded.
Method 3:
She started to care less and just have an accident while playing....then just continue playing saying, "Mommy! I had an accident!" Not gonna fly. So, I started to have her scrub up her accidents, throw old underwear in the washer, and go get new underwear herself. She oddly didn't seem to mind the work. Accidents continued.
Method 4:
Tyson and I put on our "mean faces" and took out the big guns. "Eden, when you have an accident, you get all dirty and we've got to start giving you a (cold) shower."
Accident.
Cold shower.
Screaming.
New underwear.
After two showers, she started really trying to go potty in the big girl potty. SUCCESS! She was doing a good job. But she was holding in the poopy part of going potty, you could tell.
Method 5:
We put her in Pull-Ups when we went somewhere and at night. She learned that you don't have to take a shower if you have an accident in your Pull-Up. So, she learned to save her poopies until she had a Pull-Up on. I had to go back to reminding her about "owie bummies", try to stay in the house as much as possible so we didn't put on Pull-Ups, and told her that if she goes poopy in the big girl potty then she'd get to pick out a "special prize from the treasure chest". She liked that idea. (When she went poopy in the potty she would choose out a few little rubber snakes and frogs and lizards. She's now got herself quite a collection.)
Method 6:
She had another accident. She had more fear in her eyes than I'd ever seen in her before. She yelled in terror, "I DON'T WANT TO TAKE A SHOWER!" I felt awful. I with love said that we'd take a really short shower and then warm up with a little bath. She felt a little better about that. I had to use the method of lots of love and comfort and showing pride in all that she's been accomplishing. We don't take showers anymore....then again, she hasn't had any accidents in underwear since.
Method 7:
We tried to give her a long term goal. We said that if she went 3 days without an accident in her underwear or Pull-Up (except at night time) then we'd take her to the store and get her a My Little Pony. She was THRILLED. She'd been looking at a paper that came with her other birthday ponies and there was a unicorn. While she loved the two she got for her birthday, it didn't seem complete without the unicorn.
On Friday.....we were able to go get her unicorn.
She was very, very happy.
In that picture she's saying, "UNICORN!" as we got ready to drive to Target.
This is Eden hugging her new unicorn with love.
She's been really good about going potty. I still ask her "Do you need to go potty?" often (although, she actually may not need to be asked much. She tells me herself if she needs to go and if I ask and she says "no", I trust her.) She hasn't even had an accident in her Pull-Up, not even at night time since one of the first days of potty training.
And really, potty training didn't take as long as this post makes it seem like it took. Really all those methods were done within 3-4 days with maybe 1 accident after that. And she actually probably went about 4-5 days before we took her to get the unicorn, we just hadn't kept careful track of days.
The only negative that we're currently facing....going to the store.
When Eden wore diapers, she almost 100% of the time went poopy in her diaper while at the store, at a friends house, and in nursery.
I think Eden is currently afraid of having to go poopy while in public. So, I end up taking her to the bathroom SEVERAL times when we go anywhere. She'll say, "I need to go potty." We'll go and she'll have a little "tummy bubble" and give a little nervous chuckle saying, "Oh, I just had a tummy bubble. I don't need to go."
But hey, I don't complain. Overall, I'd say she's doing AWESOME!!!
In the end, I was extremely impressed by how much food she got in her mouth. After cleaning her up and trying to take a picture of how little food remained....she found her way over to make a new mess.
