Diaper free

I think I can officially say that Claire is potty trained! She had zero accidents today. Here is our story so I can remember for the next kid, or if anyone is interested :)

At around 14 months I bought a little froggy potty at Target and since Claire hated diapers, I would let her run around naked in our family room (only large, closed off room with wood floors). She immediately loved the potty and would often pee in it a teeny tiny amount. I remember one morning when she peed 18 times in 3 hours! Some days she did great and mostly peed in the potty. Other days she would rarely would. I would often go days at a time without putting her on it if our schedule wasn't flexible or I just didn't feel like it. I was pretty casual about it. At some point I got the bjorn potty so we could have one upstairs and one downstairs. In October one day, I asked her if she wanted to use the potty or put a diaper on. Without answering, she flew to the potty and peed, it was really funny. In November, I think, she ripped off her dry diaper one day and sat down and peed without us asking her to. She also started peeing in larger amounts and holding it a little bit longer. Throughout the process, she would sometimes go pee in the potty without any prompting, sometimes went on the floor, sometimes I would put her on and she would go.

By December, I was starting to think that if I got on the ball, she could be potty trained before too long. A big pusher for me was the fact that every diaper change since she could crawl has been a nightmare. She absolutely hated hated hated diaper changes, she got pretty frequent rashes, and she loves being naked and had figured out how to take off her snap diapers.

About a week or so ago, Hyrum's sister was potty training her 22 month old using this system so I decided to check out the website then googled it looking for real mom reviews. I didn't buy the ebook, and I didn't go as hard core as the site suggests (taking away all night/nap/going out diapers, never letting child be naked). Basically the only thing I did was, instead of me putting Claire on the potty every hour (she almost never told me when she had to go at this point), I would tell her "Remember to tell mommy when you have to go peepee so you can keep your pants (or underwear, or bum is she was naked) dry". From what I gathered, the "system" is all about giving the child confidence in herself and letting her know that she is responsible and she CAN do it. I would remind her several times throughout the day when we were home, and just put diapers on at night or going out. But I would still remind her to keep her diaper dry. I think I started this a week ago today, and by Monday she was staying dry during naps. By Tuesday afternoon, she pretty much stopped peeing in her pants. She only had one pee accident Wed-Sat, and that includes three outings (to music class, the chiropractor since I threw my back out on Wed, and a friend's house). After going in the potty we always have some Yays, high fives and "you did it!" I also often tell her something like "You kept your pants dry because you told mommy you had to pee!" She loved it.

Tonight, I was trying to put her diaper on for bed and she ran away from me. She started crying and saying, "Underwear! Underwear!" I told her that if she stayed dry all night long I would put her in underwear the next night, ok? She replied with her version of OK "tay" and let me put the diaper on. It was so cute! This past week, she has had one dry diaper in the morning, one soaked morning, and most of them were just a teeny tiny bit damp.

Poop is a whole other story. I won't go into most of it, but she's been really scared to poop in the potty for a long time. Finally, last night, she let me put her standing over the potty (usually she goes stiff as a board and clings to me or Hyrum) and pooped. Then she did it again today! I think it had something to do with a new song I made up and some, uh, sound effects that she found hilarious. Hopefully she'll get more comfortable as time goes on. I also offered her a reward of painting her nails if she pooped in the potty. I'm not sure that helped, but she absolutely loves having her nails painted and I don't do it often enough anyway. I also got her a new portable potty today (yes, another one), but this one can go on a big toilet, or it can be free standing and then folds up to fit in a diaper bag. It's also pink, which might be why she now refuses either of the other potties (they're both green).

I'm so proud of my girl!