Saturday, April 16, 2011

Am I Creating a Monster?

We are now heading into week four of potty training with Bailey.  I'll admit the timing is not the best since we do have a tiny, little baby at home, but it is what it is.  Part of it is nice since we just stay at home all day and can fully committ to this potty training.  The bad part is that I spend 4-5 hours a day feeding Brooklynn so that's time that Bailey can roam free.  Bailey is also three now and very opinionated and likes to negotiate every part of her life; this often means that going to the bathroom is brokering some sort of deal with her.

Week one she seemed to be doing pretty good, but this past week has been kind of a disaster.  I thought we had the pee thing under control, but on Tuesday she peed twice and pooped once.  At that point I realized that we needed to overhaul something.  My mom suggested that I revamp the treats and put them out in the open to see all day.  Together we created the bathroom wall of treats!

I went to WalMart and bought a bucket of cheap treats--stickers, rings, stamps, fruit snacks, and of course candy.  I put some in an egg, for an element of surprise, and the rest in a bag so she could see them.  During her nap I taped them all up on the bathroom door.  When she woke up I told her I had something to show her.  She walked downstairs and then ran over to the bathroom.  She could hardly contain herself when she saw all the prizes.  She quickly went to the bathroom and picked her first prize.  Five minutes later she went again, and then again, and then again.  During the next hour she probably went 5-6 times; I don't know for sure becaus I lost track.  The new treats seemed to reenergize her enthusiasm for going in the potty, but it has yet to deliver a poop in the potty. 

On day two the rule was now that the eggs were only for poop.  I even have bigger prizes inside the bathroom for when she keeps her panties dry and clean all day.  There's even a big picture of the movie HOP inside because I told her I'd take her there when she was totally done with diapers.  My worry is that this will take so long that the movie won't be in the movie theater!  So now my question is, when do the treats stop?   When will this just happen on its own and when can I stop asking every 10 minutes?  We have gone to the park, the store, and even to my school without having an accident, so I think that's pretty good.  It also helps that my mom has a wall of treats in her bathroom too.  Bailey had to check out all the bathrooms at my mom and dad's house to see if all bathrooms now had a wall of treats.  I love the way her brain works--two bathrooms have treats, so why not all of them?

Today has been a good day for potty training, I just have to see if we can make it through the night without a #2 happening in the big girl panties.  So any thoughts and suggestions or just good luck wishes are greatly appreciated in this major undertaking at our house.

4 comments:

Toni Thomas said...

hahaha. Kaci this is funny. Oh Bailey. Keep it up!

Tami Gemmell said...

GOOD LUCK MY FRIEND!!!!!!

Lissy said...

Awesome ideas - hope it works! We are still waiting to do the big potty push, but Lily's taking steps - and even tried to go completely by herself at someone else's house we were at with all our family last night. They didn't have a stool or she probably would have done it without us even knowing - though I don't know if she would've been able to get her pants and pull-ups back on by herself! :)

Samantha said...

Oh Kaci. I've been thinking what I should say, but really, potty training is the worst. I had a few prizes for the kids for the first week, but when I was running out I told Owen, "if you go poop on the potty one more time you get one more train. After that we still go on the potty but no trains." And it just worked. I don't know what advice to give because it's really just about enduring. haha. My kids turned out to be pretty easy in the end so I don't know! just...GOOD LUCK.