Potty Training SUCKS!

Ella in her very first pair of Hello Kitty underwear

For some reason that is beyond me now, we decided to PT this weekend (Friday to Monday).  Little piece of advice...don't PT until you absolutely have to...i.e. it's required by your school.

I don't mind diapers AT ALL, and Ella doesn't have to be PT for school until she's almost 4, so what in God's name possessed me to PT already?!  Temporary insanity, I guess.  But now that we've started, there's no going back.

She was really excited in the morning to wear her big girl underwear...and then proceeded to pee in her pants (thank GOD for hardwood floors) FOUR times.  WTF?  I understand one time, even two, but after that, don't you think, "hmm, this is kind of gross to have pee running down my legs and no fun to clean it up."???  Apparently not.  So then I had to start setting the timer for every 10-15 minutes...I mean, really?

Then we get the, "I want to wear diapers again!!!!!"  Well, the excitement of wearing underwear certainly wore off quickly didn't it?  But then after a few times on the potty and the resulting sticker and m&m, she realized this is a pretty good gig.  So she decided to either sit on the potty for 30 minutes at a time until something would come out OR tell me she has to potty every 3 minutes.  UGH!

I will say, the 4 accidents were all in the morning, and she hasn't had one since morning, and she has gone on the potty TEN times (including a poop- yay!), and she has not had any poop accidents so I do need to give her some credit.

And now I have to be one of those people that carries a toliet in their car and/or has to rush to the bathroom a bunch of times while shopping or at lunching or at the park.  Yuck.  I already miss diapers...

Being stuck in the house all day long turns you into a bag lady :)

For my own records in case I want to the same with Everett, what I did...

*Talked it up for about a week before starting

*Woke up, tried to go on potty then put on underwear (no pants- just underwear)

*Rolled up the rugs downstairs so it was all hardwood floors!

*Had a basket of "prizes" that I showed her in the morning and explained that she got to choose any treat in the basket after getting a row of stickers on her potty chart

*Made a big deal after each time she went pee/poo on the potty- gave her 1 m&m and let her choose 1 sticker and put it on her chart

*Made her clean up the pee herself when she had an accident

*Stayed home all day (and had to cancel a playdate we had in the afternoon- too much distraction)

*Set timer for either every 10, 15 or 20 minutes for her to try on the potty...asked her periodically between the timers if she had to go potty...sometimes when the timer went off, I would just ask her if she had to go and not make her try if she said no, but mostly, she would run to the potty and try when the timer went off