Anecdotes from the Adkins Abode: Potty Training Adventures

About a month ago, Averi began to really hate her diaper. She would fuss and cry whenever we would put her in her car seat or booster seat and pull at her diaper like it was hurting her. She had learned to take off her pants (which she did regularly) and was trying to figure out how to remove her diaper. Thus, I knew it was time to try potty training again.

I had actually tried to potty train Averi when she was 19 months old using the Baby Signs Potty Training Kit. However, although she happily learned the necessary signs and knew the potty routine, she would not actually go to the bathroom in the potty. I decided she just wasn't quite ready yet and stopped trying.

However, now at 22 months, Averi was showing me that she was ready to be potty trained. I found a program on the Internet at www.3daypottytraining.com which was recommended by a number of people on various parenting forums. I figured it was worth a try if I could truly have Averi potty trained in just 3 days and decided to download the e-book and try it. So on Monday, October 27, Averi and I went shopping to buy all the necessary items---20-30 pairs of big girl underwear, a vinyl mattress cover that zips all around the mattress, small prizes for positive reinforcement, a step stool to help Averi reach the sink and the potty (she likes using the big toilet rather than her little potty), popcicles, and special juice boxes and water bottles. My plan was to start potty training the following day, but Averi woke up vomiting on Tuesday. So the big day was pushed back to Wednesday!

As I took off Averi's last diaper, I had mixed feelings--I was looking forward to being done with diapers, but I was also a little sad as I saw this milestone as yet another sign that my baby is growing up way too fast! There were no mixed feelings for Averi though! She was so excited when we took off her last diaper and she got to wear her first pair of big girl underwear! She took great pride in throwing away any unused diapers and pullups lying around. The book said that the first day would probably be rough with lots of messes to clean up, but that by the second or third day, most kids begin to get the hang of telling you when they have to go potty. To my surprise and delight, Averi started to get the concept on Wednesday evening! There was much celebration and dancing with each successful trip to the potty! The first few times she actually went potty on the toilet, Averi was so excited that she insisted on calling Grandma (aka Ba) to tell her about it!

We still had a couple accidents on the second and third days as she really learned to respond to her body's signs, but it was obvious that we were well on the way to Averi being potty trained! We were completely convinced that this 3 Day Potty Training method was awesome when we went out for 5 hours on Friday evening (just the 3rd day of potty training) to eat dinner and go to our nephew's basketball game and Averi went on the potty 3 times and had no accidents and then on Monday, we were out and about for 8 hours when we went to We Joy Sing class and the zoo and again she used the potty 3 times and had no accidents!

We are still working on getting Averi to wake up dry consistently in the morning--some days she does and some days she doesn't--but she has only had three accidents during the day in the last two weeks! One of those was my fault because we were driving home from church and she told me she had to go potty and rather than stop and let her use the potty chair we have been carrying in the back of the van, I tried to make it home first, and she didn't quite make it. The other two accidents have been at church when she was in her Wee Walker class without me she isn't as good yet about telling people other than Mommy or Daddy that she has to go potty).

As you can probably tell, we are quite proud of Averi on her accomplishment of being potty trained when she was just 22.5 months old!

Averi trying out the new step stool