Potty Training

 

Nelli's potty trained! I can hardly believe it!  I think the picture above is quite symbolic of this new skill she's learned. =)  Nelli started showing interest around June. We had just moved to Seattle and I wanted to wean her off the binky first, so I decided to wait.  I met my wonderful visiting teacher, Debbie Allen, who potty trained her daughter, Abby, at 20 months. She said Abby was ready and pretty much trained herself. After hearing her stories and ideas in August I started gathering more information and prepping us for the change.  Nelli was getting low on diapers at the beginning of September and I decided that I wasn't going to buy any more, we were going to do this! 

 

Nelli and I hit Target to get a new pink, cushy toilet seat, pink training panties, salty snacks, and some new activity items. I set a date to start (Sept 19th), cleared my week, and planned super simple meals.

 

The day before I almost broke down. I was worried, not knowing what I was getting myself into or how hard it would potentially be.  Like an angel, Debbie came over. She was bringing some extra training panties she had at her house. We talked about it and she helped me realize I didn't need to teach Nelli everything at once, just set a realistic goal, like helping her learn how to use her muscles to "hold it" and helping her understand that concept was an awesome goal. whew! That took a lot off my shoulders.  Much of what I had read was about was teaching them everything at once, so the parent can be freed up of the responsibility of it. I don't mind taking Nelli to the bathroom every time she goes for now.  I can teach her the other skills little by little as she gets older.

 

The week went great!  We spent most of it in or near our house. We went to the playground in our complex and went on a few short bike rides to feed the ducks. It was great to really focus on Nelli and teach her a new skill.  She pretty much did do it herself though.  I told her "no more diapers during the day" and she loved it.  It took me a bit to realize that she would tell me every time she needed to go and wouldn't go if I had her "try." I gave up initiating it after the first week and by the end of week 2 she was out of diapers completely. Until last week she struggled to go on any other potty than ours. Now she'll go anywhere-although I wish she was afraid of a few of the bathrooms we've been to...

 

I'm so glad we did it! Having a potty trained girl is a lot easier in many ways. We prayed about it along the way and I felt Heavenly Father's kindness and love throughout this experience. I'm learning that He cares about the things I make an effort to teach this sweet daughter of His.

 

Here are a few pictures of the first week:

 



Our duck spot along the Birke-Gilman trail, in front of the river.
I think Nelli ends up eating more of the bread than the ducks.

The charts (I think I enjoyed this more than she did.)

Even the smallest panties look like shorts on her :)

 

 

 

At the end of week 1, Nelli was doing so good that I decided to venture out and see how she would do on a new potty.  We met Ali and Thayne at a park. We got the kids new sunglasses and they loved them. Nelli was afraid of the potty there, so wet out... oh well, we tried and then I knew it was something to work on.