The Potty

Jill has started using the potty! In early December Bryan bought a potty and we set it up in the bathroom and started talking to Jill about it casually. Whenever we brought Jill upstairs to change a diaper we would stop by the potty and say hi.

Last Friday afternoon I took Jill to my sister's house to play with the girls and stopped by my mom's on the way home. While we were visiting, Jill started patting her diaper and saying, "potty, potty," and took off running toward my mom's bathroom. I was like, "OK, let's go sit on the potty!" I took off her pants and diaper and sat her on the toilet. But at my mom's we didn't have a little potty, so Jill looked down into the abyss and got a little scared. She said, "No. No potty," sounding stressed. So I took her down and got her dressed.

As we were driving home Jill kept saying, "Stinky, puey," over and over again. When we got home I checked to see if her diaper needed changing and it didn't, so, anxious for her to get back on the potty after being scared at my mom's, I asked if she wanted to go. She started climbing up the stairs immediately so I grabbed a couple of her books and followed her.

Jill sat on her potty for about 15 minutes while I read to her. She tried to get up a couple of times and I said, "Good job sitting on the potty! If you want to get up we have to put your your diaper back on." She said, "No diaper!" then pushed it away and sat back down. About five minutes later she started reaching for her behind saying, "Puey. All done?" She got up, we looked in the potty together, and there it was!

I was thrilled! I couldn't reach Bryan but I called my sister and my mom to give them the play by play. I did save the puey in the potty for Bryan to see when he got home. I know that sounds terrible, but it was only about 45 minutes. Bryan was so excited and surprised when he got the news.

Since Friday Jill has used the potty 5 times for a bm and twice for tinkles. When she's done we dump the contents into the toilet and say, "Bye bye, pueys! Bye bye, tinkles!" and then flush together. Jill can occasionally tell me when she needs to go number two, but she has a hard time with tinkles. At this point I'm not trying to potty train her at all. I'm keeping her in diapers and just encouraging her to sit on the potty a couple of times a day. It's going pretty well, but it requires patience. Sometimes we sit there for 15-20 minutes and nothing happens. Then I say, "Good job sitting on the potty! Nice trying!"

Jill has the potty on her mind. She says, "Good job, potty! Bye bye, tinkles!" all day long. I'm not sure she'll keep this up but we'll see.