Sunday, September 29, 2013

Another Potty Training Update: Jo's Figuring it Out!

Joanna's potty training continues to make progress! For a few weeks now, Jo has gotten her poo-poo in the potty more often than not. She usually runs up to me in a panic and starts jumping from foot to foot, and sometimes she says, "Pooh!" I put her on the potty, and she goes! She yells, "Yay, Jo!" after she makes the basket. Sometimes, she doesn't tell me, and she goes on the floor. I say that happens about 1/3 of the time. She almost never goes in her diaper anymore, but it sometimes happens when she is in the crib.

Her poo-poo progress is a direct result of a book I bought her, called Once Upon a Potty. It is a really cute, little story about a girl (or boy, if you get the boy book) who learns how to use the potty. I was surprised the first time I read it to her because it is a little detailed about anatomy! I don't think it is a bad thing at all, but I was definitely not expecting to read the part about the little hole that makes poo-poo. The kids love it, and they cheer for Prudence (the little girl) when she finally poops in her potty. Joanna brings me the book all the time and says, "Prudence?" I read it to her when she sits on the potty.

About a week ago, Jo's behavior on the potty started to change. When I put her on the potty, she actually tries to go. Before, she would run up to me at the last moment before she had to poop, or she would start to tinkle on the floor and then stop until I put her on the potty. Last week, she peed so many times in the potty but only after she started to go on the floor first. This week, she has made numerous successful potty attempts. She tinkled in the potty three times today alone without going on the floor at all! I put her on the potty, and she worked really hard to get some pee-pee out. Then she cheered, "Yay, Jo!"

I feel like the last couple of months were very slow moving on the potty training, but it has suddenly clicked. I wish we could spend another week focusing on potty training, like we did when we first started. We are just so busy with Oliver's classes and stuff that it's not possible. So, she still spends hours a day in a diaper. I hope she will start to go potty before we leave the house so that she can maybe learn to stay dry when we run errands. If she starts to go consistently before we leave and starts to stay dry consistently, then I plan to switch her from diapers to training undies when we leave the house. That step is at least a couple of weeks away, but she will hopefully be ready to go diaperless during the day--even when we are away from home--by her second birthday. In a couple of weeks, we will be switching houses. We'll be leaving Andrew's parents' house and staying with my parents for a few months until we are ready to buy a place of our own after Christmas. I know big changes aren't very conducive to successful potty training, so we might face some potty regression before she figures the whole potty thing out. That's OK! We're just rolling with it.

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