Enter with Caution

If you have ever had children, raised children, baby sat children or maybe even been a child; then you know that potty training can be tricky.  It may even involve tears (and I don't mean from the child).  So, it was with trepidation, and maybe a little fear, that I decide to start potty training my 22-month old. 

Why was I scared?  What could be so bad about this?  After all, my first two potty trained pretty easily!  My oldest completely trained at 18-months old, but had some serious digression problems at age 2 when she ingested artificial food color.  That became a year long nightmare, but this is a story for another time. 

Then, my second child was really easy!  I didn't even have to train him, but rather big sister did all the training.  Little siblings want to be just like their older siblings; so it worked.  Easy peasy, done and done.

Now I have child number three.  She wanted to start using the potty around 18-months, but I simply was not ready to conquer this task.  She could talk and communicate well (to me at least), but I felt like she might not be ready to tell me BEFORE she need to go, so I kept stalling.  Now, at 22-months, I decided that I was ready to be done with diapers (cloth or otherwise). 

If the first two were so easy, why the fear with the third...especially since she has been ready for 4 months?  Well...I told her for about 3 days before we started that we were going to start using the potty.  Her answer, "NO!"  Simply, loud and adamant..."NO!"  If you know her, you know that she is strong willed.  It is her way or the highway (or so she thinks).  I seriously was in no way ready to clean messes up all day long, so yes, fear.  But, when the day came to train she hopped up on the potty and tried.  All day long she tried.  No success, but no major failure either.  Day two started and when I put her on the potty I quickly realized that I was distracting her, so I acted like I needed to go get something and stepped just outside the door where she couldn't see me, but I could hear her.  The Flood Gates Opened!  Seriously, she used the potty and has been doing it successfully ever since!  She has rarely had an accident and is wearing big girl underwear all day (even staying dry all night, but I still have a diaper on her just in case).  We are on day 5 or 6 and I would say that she is a potty champion!  Proud Momma moment :)  I am thinking that in the next few weeks she will be completely accident free and maybe even diaper free at night! 

Now we just need to work on getting her to sleep through the night - lol.  Hey, there's an oil for that!