Tuesday, September 02, 2014

People And Pottying

For about three months we had been planning on going to New York this past weekend. Those plans fell through about three weeks ago, and so we (really, "I") decided that it would be a good weekend to attempt to toilet train Rachel. I wanted three days in a row where we could basically stay home and where Dave would also be available. And then we ended up having supper plans Every. Single. Night. Since Rachel has not been super consistent about peeing in the potty, we weren't sure how it was going to go.

I began on Friday afternoon at 2. Willem came over for the afternoon and entertained Sam, which was awesome. Since I didn't want to just hang out in the kitchen (scene of the crime), I also decided that Rachel and I would work on her letters. Just so we had something to do!
I plied Rachel with lots of juice, she got a Smartie every time she sat on the potty, and she wore underwear the whole time. She finally peed after about an hour and a half. Then we had to head out for a little bit so I put a pullup on her.

She ended up having a couple of accidents on Friday (one with regards to pooping), but by Friday night she was announcing, "I have to pee!!!" and running to the potty and peeing on it. It was pretty awesome. Tim and Willem came for supper, and Rachel fell asleep on Dave's lap at 7:30. I think she was pretty exhausted.

Saturday morning Rachel woke up with a dry diaper and I hurried her downstairs (at 7:15am, without wearing my glasses or putting my contacts in) to try and convince her to pee. I took this picture and in my sleep deprived state I couldn't figure out why the camera wasn't focusing properly. After a few minutes, I realized that the camera was fine but I wasn't focusing properly. Ha!
After that exhausting interlude, I crashed on the futon in the office, Sam played, and Dave and Rachel continued to focus on keeping Rachel's underwear dry, more or less successfully.

Rachel did have a few more accidents but I would say about 80% of the time she was successful on the potty. That afternoon we worked some more on our letters.
On Saturday night our friends Julie and Saskia came over for supper and that was tons of fun! Rachel conked out around 7:30 again.

Sunday we hung around here in the morning and then went to our friends' house for supper. Rachel wanted to bring her potty along and so I told her to pick it up. Unbeknownst to Dave and I, she had peed in it earlier and sadly, got kind of wet when she picked it up. The major highlight was that not only was she peeing on the potty, but she was doing it of her own accord.

Although we had her sit numerous times at our friends' house, she didn't pee the entire six hours we were there. And yes, she had a lot to drink. So we put a pullup on over her underwear, and hoped for the best. And she stayed dry all the way home!

Yesterday Rachel pooped on the potty for the first time ever. I screamed so loud with excitement that some of you may have heard it where you live! :) And we went out in the evening and she stayed dry the whole time.

So, fingers crossed, I think we have trained Rachel. After the nightmare, and years of work, that was training Sam, this has felt like a pretty easy transition. I will still put a pullup on over Rachel's underwear when we leave the house for any length of time (like today I have to go run some errands), but we can see a diaperless house in our near future, and after five and a half years, that feels like a pretty huge milestone!

And that was our weekend. Thanks for reading along. What did you do this past weekend? I hope it included less of a focus on bodily functions and more on fun, but sometimes that's how life goes.

Note: We are not pushing Rachel on night training, and we will let that happen in its own time, but she does wake up dry 2-3 times a week, so I don't think we're too far off from that milestone either.

6 comments:

  1. Hi Natasha! Congrats on the potty training! I don't have kids, but I do have younger brothers and sister (much younger), and I am pretty sure that's how my parents did it. Don't worry about the night training. That takes a bit longer. Sorry about your plans falling through :(

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    1. Thank you! I'm not worried about the night training. I'm more worried about the fact that the day training is basically done and thinking we're going to be in for it for the night time learning. Ha ha ha!!!

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  2. Yay, Rachel! I keep saying that potty training Avery had better be a piece of cake after the months and months it took to consider Davis "trained" (at least in the daytime), so hopefully she will surprise us like Rachel has for you :)

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  3. I love how you stared "at 2pm"...that made me laugh! You sounded majorly excited to get right to the training first thing in the morning! (Or not...hah!). I still shudder at the remembering of training Kate....literally YEARS it seemed, like Sam....and haven't done anything with Linc except ask him now and then if he wants to go....which he always says no. Your Rachel experience gives me hope!! Haha!

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  4. Wa-hoo!!! Glad to know that she is doing so good!

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  5. Yay, Rachel! And yes, I would say with my boys this is how we had to do it. While they might occasionally go during the months that we used pull ups and tried to introduce them to the potty, they never officially trained until we spent a long weekend just doing the full wearing underwear and using the potty all day. I am convinced that there is just no other way. I would be interested to hear if any one else has another method that works, but I say stick to what you know. :-)

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