learning the potty ... all over again
we decided it was time to help rua ‘learn the potty’ when she kept asking the staff in her nursery if she could use theirs, and finally took herself off to the bathroom and made use of her cousins at a family get together….
three days home, mostly bare bottom; heres a little run through of how it went.
we started over the winter break between christmas get togethers and that sleepy period when real life starts kicking back in again.
she was two years and eight months old.
off the top shelf, id pulled down the trusty book we read when we went through it the first time with marlow and began speed reading in preparation!
ordered in a new potty and toilet seat
got some girls knicks from the local store
and we were ready to go.
DAY ONE (ish)
we had ballet class in the afternoon, so i prepared her that morning telling her what we were going to do afterwards and she was SO excited. i wont forget that eager little face.
after ballet we sat her on the potty and myself and marlow eagerly encouraged her to let loose. nothing….
we tried twice with no joy so i made myself a cuppa and settled into the couch, shortly followed by rua shouting ‘ive done a wee wee!’. lo and behold! marlow autumn confirmed with surprise, ‘she has mum! theres yellow in the potty!’ we stared at one another in disbelief.
this was it.
wed cracked it - she was ready.
my job would be simple.
these were the thoughts that preceded two wees and one poop which later happened on the laminate floor.
she burst into tears after the first time and it broke my heart a little, but marlow and i gave her tonnes of encouragement. (i will not deny that after the second accident which she was far less bothered by…. thoughts of ‘oh no maybe we started too early’ and ‘what did i let myself in for’ then began to creep in).
bless her, she redeemed herself with another little tinkle in the potty before bed and that was it, we survived day one.
thinking back is a blur but im pretty sure her sister took a couple for the team too and piddled on the potty by way of example (a definite improvement to the process this time, compared with 37 week old pregnant me squatting to do it the first time around).
DAY ONE (proper)
we had a complete day of bare bottom, with plenty of christmas lego and snacks to keep us occupied at home. she honestly made us so proud. ryan was recruited to help and i think the whole day she perhaps had only one small accident. she was a superstar.
poop in the potty accomplished.
DAY TWO
the introduction of pants. she smashed it. no accidents.
we continued to prompt her throughout the day to remind her to go (perhaps about once an hour or more frequently if she had recently had a big drink). we were ready for clothes!
DAY THREE
(and with cabin fever fully set in) we walked her big sister to school. she passed the whole day without accidents and then late afternoon we had one giant blip in the car seat (after a big drink). it was her first time in the car seat and i rather idiotically hadnt put down an absorbent pad into the bottom of the car seat so it was d-r-e-n-c-h-e-d. poor bairn.
that night i had a lesson in always ensuring we empty our bladder before car journeys and also how to remove the covers for a long overdue car-seat-deep-clean.
i found money and mints.
DAY FOUR
she trotted into nursery with her bag (containing four changes of clothes…i probably over-egged it a little). once again she surprised me and came home with three clean outfits… just one little accident right at the start of the day before she was taken through to her normal room, and in the chaos of everyone dropping off their little loves to nursery i think that one was to be expected.
ONWARDS
shes been a dream. i learnt about rua alma that she is incredibly strong willed and focused when she puts her mind to it.
soon after, we started using the toilet seat rather than the potty and im gradually phasing it out, for the ‘big girl toilet’, because pouring bodily fluids from the bowl into the basin is not my favourite thing.