Wish I'd Known: Potty Training and Regression

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When I was potty training my daughter, my mom warned me that:

Often times your child will regress after being potty trained

And what do you know....my mom was right :) When my daughter started having accidents again I had to come up with a new plan of attack.  That's when I introduced drawing faces.  Each time she'd go the the bathroom in the toilet, she got to draw a face on a piece of paper that I had hung up on the fridge.  When my husband got home, she'd get to show him her beautiful artwork.  This little change of reward seemed to do the trick.

I currently have a friend dealing with this situation with her daughter.  What are some tips you'd have for her?

Wish I'd Known: Candy-less Potty Training

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Today's tip is about potty training.

Don't give candy as a reward for potty training - Nia

Nia, I totally 100% agree with you!  When I potty trained my daughter, I was trying to figure out what I would do as a reward.  I knew several people who gave candy, but I didn't really want my daughter eating a ton of candy.  I decided to use stickers.  I put a piece of paper on the wall that said "I Went Potty".  Then each time she went to the bathroom she got to put stickers on the paper.  She would get one sticker for pee-pee and two stickers for poo-poo.  She loved getting to pick out her stickers.

The first day couple of days of potty training consisted of several trips to the bathroom with a ton of little successes.  IfI had been giving her candy as a reward, my daughter would have been in a sugar coma!

Unfortunately, we went on a trip to Georgia and through wearing pull-ups in the car rides, her potty training regressed a bit so I had to re-potty train her.  I wasn't totally starting from scratch, but you get the idea.  I wanted to do a different reward this time, but still avoid the candy.  What I ended up doing was hanging a paper on the fridge and each time she went to the bathroom she could come and draw a smiley face.  No, they didn't really look like faces, but she LOVED it!  Then every day my husband would get back from work she could show him all of her faces.

I started thinking that the whole drawing faces thing could be used as a learning opportunity.  Instead of drawing faces, your child could trace a letter of the alphabet or draw a certain shape.  They are learning while getting their reward!

Potty training can be hard.  Let us know if you have any other tips for moms out there!

Mommy Moment: Queen of the Potty

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Today's Mommy Moment comes from Kasaundra.  A mom of 2 1/2 year old twins.  There are plenty of potty training moments that can give you a good laugh.....at least looking back.

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I have always been very proud of the fact that I rarely ever got peed on with two newborns in my house. I didn't know that potty training would completely demolish my scoreboard. 

Yesterday, Delilah asked to sit on the potty. I was shocked that she was asking permission and that she was doing so willingly. I happily encouraged her only to be disappointed that she merely sat down and stood back up again to walk away. False alarm.

She then asked to sit on my lap while we watched a movie together. I had no problem with that and was snuggled up with my little girl in no time. I should have realized something was wrong when she started to lift herself off my lap, lock her knees together, and whine. 

But what REALLY gave it away was the warm liquid dribbling into my lap.

I was so happy that she decided to obey me at that point and ran over to the potty. 

Way better choice than my lap.

So needless to say, I was very excited when she successfully used the potty and then joined Porter and I for a potty celebration dance!

No. There is no video and no, you couldn't see it even if there were.

So there we were, dancing and singing about Delilah and her amazing potty skills. When a spontaneous round of applause broke out in her favor, I supported it. She asked for some toilet paper and I thought I was doing her a solid by getting it for her. She gratefully took it and before my brain had a chance to catch onto what was happening, her hand and the toilet paper were dunked in her potty. The sweetheart was trying to "clean up" her pee.

When my brain finally caught up, I yelped and grabbed her quickly away from that horrible but well-meant action and ran her to the kitchen to wash her hands. Afterwards, we went back to the potty and pantomimed what toilet paper is actually used for. I think it stuck.

The next step in "potty celebration mode" is to pick up said potty and go dump its contents in the actual toilet. Delilah was pretty proud of herself and cradled it carefully in her arms while Porter skipped along behind her still singing and dancing for her success.

We got to the toilet and Delilah successfully dumped the contents and flushed the toilet. We all raised our fist in a final victory pump before I turned to take the potty bowl from her to rinse in the sink.

Delilah quickly maneuvered the bowl away from me and plopped it on her head and took off down the hallway still celebrating her victory.

I stood there in shook with my mouth gaping open before a horrified "DELILAH!!!" ripped from my throat and I took off after her. She was completely confused by my disapproval of her new hat and let me know how displeased she was with me as I sat her on the couch and dabbed at the pee in her hair with a towel.

We were ALL definitely getting a bath that day.