God help me, but the opportunity to potty train my daughter presented itself three weeks before Christmas! Trust me, I NEVER would have chosen this time in a million years.
I have read all the articles and taken all the online questions, and yes, I believe she is "ready". And what we are going through is probably normal, but I could really use some words of wisdom and a pep-talk.
Things came to a boil when my daughter's favorite playmate at daycare called her out for wearing diapers, prompting interest in McKenna wanting underwear and to use the potty more. McKenna's daycare teacher, Debbie (degrees in child psych), told me to send her to daycare in undies and that in a couple of weeks, she was certain that McKenna would have it down.
Here's where we are:
We average 1 accident most days and it is almost always poop.
We take her to the potty every half hour or so.
If asked, most of the time she will tell us when she has to go or not and is accurate for pee.
She has more accidents with my mom, which I believe is that my mom can be a little time challenged.
She will sometimes tell Debbie she has to go without prompting, but never tells me or my mom (who watches her 2x/week). But then I think, why does she have to tell me, I ask her 100x a day if she has to go!
She is so embarrassed when she has an accident, which I take the blame for because as a single harried parent trying to pull off Christmas, an accident is pretty much always inconvenient and I end up blurting out "OH MCKENNA!" before I can stop myself. Especially when I have asked her several times and she STILL poops in her pants.
I know she is really capable of it. She has told me on a few occasions in the past 6 months that she had to go, it's like she just doesn't want to because she doesn't want to stop what she is doing or that she just isn't paying attention to what her body is telling her.
It is taking tons of work and time to get the stains out of the underwear. But I hate to move her back to diapers or even pull-ups, because I truly in my heart believe that it will make her feel bad and disappointed in herself.
So, I guess what I want to know is, how long until she can start telling me herself and I know peeing is easier, but what else can I do to help her? If it wasn't for the holidays, I would quit asking her all the time, let the accidents happen and let her get better at telling me (which I may do after Christmas), but I just don't have time to scrub the rugs several times a day right now.
Ah...the timing of a two year old! My son decided he was ready to be potty-trained two days after I brought his newborn sister home from the hospital! It sounds like your daughter is well on her way. My son was trained at about 2 .75 yrs, but did not reliably go on his own (without us telling him all the time...) until he was 3 and started preschool where the other children did the same thing. As far as the pooping in her undies, does she resist pooping on the potty or does she just not know yet? My son was a resister, so our compromise was that he could poop in a pullup, but he had to go take off his undies, put on the pullup and then call me when he was ready for a change. This gave him the power to chose what was happening. He did this for several months--gross, but not as bad as cleaning undies. I also started to just throw out the poop undies and got a big pack of the super cheap all white undies. Once he went 1 week without any accidents, we went to Carter's and picked out any of the super cute ones he wanted. I don't know if any of this helps you, but I hope something works. My son was 3 in Sept and I can hardly remember when he didn't wear underwear--good luck! Oh, and my son does still wear a pull up to bed. Merry Christmas!
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D.C.
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If you really think she has it down except that she just doesn't want to stop playing... one thing that worked for me in this situation was that I had my son help me clean up after he had an accident. I never phrased it as a punishment, but rather just as - oh, look at this mess, we need to clean this up before we can play anymore. And I'd give him a damp paper towel and have him "clean" for the same amount of time that I did. He quickly realized that it took up less of his playtime use the potty than it took to clean up the mess if he didn't tell me.
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D.P.
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I sympathize with the timing, but I think this case may call for "full steam ahead"! LOL
Pull ups would make the poop accidents easier to deal with, but I agree with you that it may confuse her. And if you're in "full steam ahead" mode, that won't be appropriate.
I guess you'll have to grin and bear it. You'll get through it and then you'll be FREE of the diaper bag!
Ask her frequently to try on the potty--when she gets up, before meals, before bed, etc. They need reminding a LOT in the beginning.
Idea for the undies--a bucket of pre-soak near the washer? Have you tried the Gerber training pants? They are thick cotton and I loved them while my son was potty training.
If it's any consolation, I still remind my 6 yr old son to pee before we leave the house! He knows when he has to go, but I guess I'm a control freak and not a big fan of pulling over at every McDonald's I pass!
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E.L.
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C.,
Do yourself (and your daughter) a favor and put her back in pullups. I'm no child psychologist, just a mother of 3, but in my own experience, the child will completely train themselves when their ready. I know from reading other posts, that I am not among the majority of people who try all kinds of things to get their child potty trained. In my opinion, it's all too much work and stress! My youngest daughter just went through it. She started expressing interest this past summer in using the potty, and we were all excited, and we went through taking her to the potty all the time. She did good for a while, so we put her in underwear, and in a couple of weeks she lost interest, so she regressed. She had lots of accidents in her underwear, so we put her back in pullups. We took the pressure off of everybody. A few months later (this was one or two weeks before Thanksgiving), she started telling us on her own when she had to go (poop first, then pee), and that was it. She has had only 1 accident since then, and she's even dry at night. I don't think she will be too ashamed of going back to pullups if you let her know you are not upset with her. In fact, I think it will take the pressure off of her. As far as her friend who called her out goes, she may still give your daughter incentive keep trying. Hope this helps!
