We're Making Progress...

Today, right before nap, Little Miss announced that she had to go potty. I pretty much figured it was a stalling tactic, as we’d been having fun playing prior to that point. She’s getting good at trying those, but I generally don’t let her get away with them. Buuut since we are trying to potty train her, I can count on it being a false alarm.

So into the bathroom we went.

Little Miss: Mommy, I have a dry diaper.
Me: I’m sure you do, Sweetie.
Little Miss: I don’t have any pee-pee in it at all.
Me: Well, let’s check. And there really wasn’t any!
Little Miss: Now I have pee-pee hands. I have to wash them with water and soap and make bubbles so the pee-pee hands go away.
Me: You’ve got it, Peanut.
Little Miss: Now I get to do a sticker book page. And if I keep my diaper dry more, then I get to wear big girl underwear. And then if I do pee-pee and poo-poo in the potty, I get to wear Cars pull-ups. (Yes, they’re leftover from Mister Man’s potty training experience.)
Me: Well, actually, you can wear pull-ups if you keep your diaper dry and tell me when you have to go potty for a whole day. Then if you keep it dry for four days, you get to wear big girl underwear. Pull-ups come before underwear, Sweet Pea.

And after naptime, I walk into Little Miss’ room to get here…

Little Miss: I have a dry diaper again, and I want to go potty.

Off we went again. Unfortunately, this time, there was a tiny bit of urine in the diaper, so it doesn’t count for a dry diaper sticker book page. But she still went a pretty good amount, so yay Little Miss!

Tonight before bed, she again wanted to go potty. She definitely didn’t have a dry diaper that time, which isn’t a surprise since she’d been playing with the children of some friends of ours since right after nap all the way until then. But she tried to go anyway. Not much came out. Then....

Little Miss: I have to make poops!

And she did! She actually knew. And she sat on the potty long enough to complete her mission. You’ll all be grateful that it didn’t even cross my mind to take a picture. Yay!

We have four months until we start at St. Marks where using the potty is not an option. I’m definitely not panicking yet, but I keep remembering that Mister Man didn’t potty train until almost 3 ½ (although thankfully we had zero accidents once he did). I definitely don’t want to push it on Little Miss because I don’t want it to be a power struggle or something where she isn’t ready and we have accidents constantly. I’m hoping that introducing the concept early enough will give her long enough to get comfortable and potty train easily.

We’re allowing her to do one dress up of stickers from the Usborne books I bought her a month or so ago. Plus, she knows that once she potty trains, I’ll let her start taking swimming lessons like Mister Man. And obviously, she knows that she needs to use the potty when she goes to St. Marks. Interestingly, while she will use the potty at her daycare, she refuses to do so at her current preschool. I wonder if she knows that she doesn’t have to and therefore doesn’t chose to.

In any case, we’re making progress! Anyone have other suggestions? (And yes, once it’s warmer, we’ll be spending our time outdoors in dresses a LOT!)