Three Days

Last Sunday I was talking to a mom at church who has a little girl in nursery with Rylee. She was telling me about this 3 day potty training method that she used and said how great it was! I kind of introduced Rylee to the idea of using the potty a few months ago, but she just never really seemed that into it, so I didn't really push it. But I decided to give this a try, and it worked! I'm so proud of Rylee, she's done so well - she only had a few accidents during the 3 days (Thursday-Saturday) and didn't have ANY accidents today - even at church! Yay for having only one kiddo in diapers!

So here's the basic gist of how it worked. On Thursday morning I took off her diaper and put on panties and talked to her about what a big girl she is. Then we went and found all of her diapers and she threw them away. (Later that night when she was talking to Quinn about it, she was so excited about being a big girl that she even took two of her binks and threw them away! She said she was going to sleep without them, but when bedtime came around she wound up wanting a bink...) Then Rylee and I were basically attached at the hip for the next three days. The idea is to never force her to sit on the toilet - "trying" to go potty is a no-no - but to help her recognize her body's signs that she needs to go. So I spent three days saying "Tell mommy when you have to go potty, OK?" and "Are your panties still dry? Yay! What a big girl!" The reason that we were attached at the hip is that I had to catch her in the act of having an accident - whenever she started to go, I picked her up and ran to the bathroom and let her finish on the potty (like I said, this only happened a few times - most of the time she told me that she had to go "potty pee!") So I tried to find activities to keep Rylee entertained that would also allow me to keep a close eye on her. We made brownies (I wound up eating about half the pan by myself before I took the rest to the neighbors so that I couldn't finish the pan!) As you can see in all of the pictures below, Rylee didn't wear pants, just a shirt and panties for the training process, which allowed me to see as soon as she started going...We also made popsicles...this served a double purpose:

1) it was an activity that Rylee enjoyed and

2) she was supposed to drink lots of liquid to give lots of teaching opportunities...she got tired of me always trying to shove drinks down her throat.

Another major part of the training is that it's cold turkey - no diapers of any kind, even at night and during naps! Rylee made it through all of her naps dry, but the first two nights she woke up wet. Anticipating this, I had bought some extra sheets. They have a really cute little birdie pattern on them, and when I put them on her mattress Friday morning, Rylee was SO excited!
She literally spent probably close to two hours that morning jumping around in her crib because she loved the sheets so much!

So now, when she goes to bed, we tell her to "keep her birdies dry." When she woke up this morning and they were dry, she was very excited and kept talking about her "dry birdies."

At some point (I think after she went #2) I taught Rylee to say "hip hip hooray!"

We spent quite a bit of time playing outside, too. Rylee loves wearing these boots lately...I must say, she looks like quite the sassafrass in her boots and panties!

She also played a lot with some plastic pots we had out back...she carried them all over and wore them as hats.

By Saturday, Rylee was pretty sick of me following her everywhere and started getting upset when I would ask her if her panties were dry or telling her to let me know if she had to go potty. Honestly I was sick of it too - it's amazing how tiring it is to pay such close attention so something for three days straight! I was pretty worn out, but it was SO worth it! I'd much rather be exhausted for three days than have her have accidents for weeks or months on end. So it's just panties from now on...yay!

Here are a few other hi-lights of the week...

I put Rylee's hair in pigtails and she looked in the mirror and said "Aya hair!" (Because Ava wears her hair in pigtails sometimes.)

I thought this picture was so sweet! These girls love each other so much!

Cailyn just keeps getting cuter and cuter...

I just love kissing those cheeks!

And here is Rylee in her favorite hiding place during tonight's round of hide and seek. She still loves it, and still hasn't figured out that you're supposed to be quite when you're the one hiding...