Big Girl Undies Day 1

Yesterday was day 1 of 3 for potty training Johanna. We survived and with only one load of laundry... one big load of laundry ;) My friend Katie potty trained her daughter Etta with Lora Jensen's 3 day method and had great results. I figured why not give it a try if it works it works, if not there's no rush. With Jensen's method she recommends starting after 22 months but before they reach 30 months.

Jensen's method uses six principles; love, consistency, dedication, positive reinforcement, patience and focus. Basically stated it requires three days of undivided attention to your toddler with tons of praise and silent rewards. You are teaching your child to recognize their body signals for going potty. You ask your child about 5,000 times a day to let you know when they have to go potty instead of asking if they have to go. You only take them to the potty under three conditions; they ask to go, they say they need to go or you catch them having an accident.

I haven't used any other method so I have nothing to compare it to, but it seems to be working well. Oh, did I mention this method eliminates all diapers? Yesterday morning our first step was to throw them all away. Johanna helped me carry them downstairs and put them in the garbage herself. (Then later I removed them to save for JJ of course). She didn't mind at all and loved saying "Bye bye, diapers! Johanna's a big girl now!" After we threw the diapers away we put her first pair of big girl undies on and had the big girl talk. Did I mention this meant no diapers at bedtime or nap time either? Yikes! 

So how is she doing? Yesterday between 8am and 9am, our first hour, we went through 5 pairs of undies. Then it started to click. For the first three days she gets a little prize when she makes it to the potty, usually a sticker sometimes a jelly bean. When she does something really great like going poop in the potty she gets a bigger prize like a little slinky or a mini flashlight, you know the cheap stuff from the dollar store. It's not so much about the prizes though although they are fun. It's more about being persistent about reminding them to check their undies, telling you when they need to go and learning how to tell when they need to go before they do it. Throughout the day you give tons of praise when they check their undies and they are dry.

 So how about naps and bedtime? Yesterday she took her nap as usual and woke up dry! At bedtime we stopped drinks three hours before bedtime and then tried going potty before lying down. I woke her up about an hour into sleeping to see if she needed to go then let her fall asleep for the rest of the night. Around 2am I was getting up to check on her to make sure her bed was dry and as I was walking to her room there she was in the hallway playing with Pinky, scared me half to death. I'm not sure how long she'd been up for but her bed was wet. After changing her sheets and putting her back to bed I decided to stay in her room with her to remind her as she slept to let me know when she had to go potty. Around 6 am JJ woke up (he went 7 hours last night with out waking up!!!) so I went to feed him. Of course in that ten minutes of me being away she wet the bed again. Soooo... not sure how this bedtime thing will go for her but I'm going to stick with it for a little while at least.

 Day 1 rundown:

7 wet undies (5 in the first hour)

2 wet sheets (both at night)

1,000 glasses of water...give or take ;)

500 glasses of milk...give or take ;)

200 glasses of juice...give or take ;)

2 Princess Sofia movies

2 Tinkerbell movies

6 stickers, 5 princess rings, 4 jelly beans, 1 slinky, 1 chocolate coin 

2 poops in the potty

16 pee-pees in potty

What is she doing now as I type this? Watching Mickey Mouse of course, she now goes at least a half hour between potty trips. This method requires tons and tons and TONS of fluids and tons and tons and TONS of down time to catch all the accidents. We normally don't sit around in our jammies all day watching toons but ya gotta do what ya gotta do with a toddler and baby! I had to turn down a couple play dates and chores but 3 days will be over with soon and we can get back to our normal more productive days.

It's a little wearing on Momma though I must admit, hence the blog entry/down time. Keep you posted on today's progress!