We've made it through the first week and thank God for that! The week definitely had highs and lows but we stuck with it and that brings me to week 2 which is actually ending today.
The beginning of week 2 marked a radical advancement in her progress so we decided that she was ready to begin wearing big girl panties again. We woke up on Saturday morning and made a big deal out of being a big girl and wearing big girl panties. She seemed to have mixed emotions about putting them on and I'm not sure if that was because of her experience with them in the beginning or the fact that she had been running around bare bummed for the past week but she was slightly reluctant. After we got them on her, we all did the big girl panties dance (if you need lessons, I'm happy to help - just kidding). She got used to wearing them rather quickly and we went on, life as normal.
I found myself panicking a little bit with not being able to see if she had an accident but I got over it quickly when the first few pantie checks were dry! We made sure to do a dry pants dance and celebrate those accomplishments.
We noticed that she began to be very honest when we would ask, "Do you have to go pee pee?" She would usually respond with a no but when she had to go she would either say yes or start running the the potty. Saturday (Day 8) was a great success. We had 1 tiny accident in our panties but finished that pee in the potty, so we decided it was time to try leaving the house - EEEK!
I volunteer for a group called YoungLife and I lead with 2 gals that play Whitworth Basketball. They just happened to have a game that evening and we wanted to go watch and support them. I knew where the bathroom was and felt comfortable taking Stella there. We put on the Potty Patty 2-in-1 waterproof pants (which were ran rather small so if you are on the edge of their weight limit, I would go 1 size up), grabbed the portable potty seat (a genius invention), and headed out to Whitworth University.
When we got there, we immediately visited the bathroom to make sure we were setting ourselves up for success. She willingly sat on the potty but didn't actually go. During the game, we visited the potty 6 times total because she would respond "yes" when asked if she had to potty. I knew that she didn't always have to go, but I would much rather have a false alarm than an accident so we went and sat on the potty every time. She did actually go pee on 1 visit so she did her first big girl potty outside of the house!!! YAY STELLA!! By the end of the game, the team had won and so had we! Dry pants all the way home! I considered that day a GREAT day!
The next day was going to be the true test, a visit to Auntie Diane's house for a Super Bowl get together. This was sure to bring lots of distractions, fun toys to play with and other babies. I wasn't sure how it was going to go but it was worth finding out. Unfortunately, it went as I suspected and she was thoroughly distracted and would respond "no" every time we asked her if she had to go potty. This ended up resulting in a few accidents - 1 poo and 1 pee. However, I realized how well the 2-in-1 panties worked because I couldn't feel a thing from the outside. We recognized how much distractions played a part in her success and found that in circumstances like that, we needed to be more proactive about getting her on the potty. Lesson learned.
As the work week began, she continued to have the same levels of success that she had experienced over the weekend. It became more common to have pee pees in the potty and rare to have accidents. She was becoming more consistent and we liked the trend we were seeing, however we were still averaging 1 accident per day. Usually this meant she would start a bit in her pants and then tell us she had to go and finish on the potty, so it wasn't a complete accident I suppose.
Then came Thursday (Day 13) and we experienced what we had been waiting for...THE ACCIDENT FREE DAY!!!! She had told us every time when she had to go and didn't have even the slightest tinkle or poo in her pants. I was so proud and excited for her and can't wait to see her continued progress.
Our next steps are weaning her from her pull up during naps and night time. She is still going quite a bit at night so that might be the last thing we do but we've already began to put her in panties for nap 1. So far, she is still having difficulty staying dry but we will continue to work on it. When she seems to begin mastering that, we will move on to doing the same for nap 2 and then on to bedtime eventually. She is still young so I know that will come in time.
I will continue to update you as we progress through our potty training journey. Thank you for reading and being a part of this with us!
Try the towel potty training method.
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