Colleen = Officially Potty-Trained

Warning - this post discusses potty training, poo, pee and wiping. Read at your own risk. :)

Very early this morning I heard someone get out of bed, turn on lights go downstairs, wander, more lights on and off and then go back to bed. It was Colleen. She had woken up, gone downstairs, taken off her footy-jammies, gone potty, (probably not washed her hands), put back on her pj's and gone back to bed - without waking up Brian or I. She just took care of it herself. I'm so proud. If a child can take care of busness in the middle of the night with no help from a parent they are, in my mind, Officially Potty-Trained.

The potty training journey started in the spring. I would ask Colleen if she would like to try going in the potty. She would look at me as if I were crazy and say, "NO!" My potty training philosophy is: don't push them, or else you will make your own life miserable. So I let it go. We found an Elmo's Potty Time DVD at a garage sale and watched that but we were stalled. Brian kept on repeating his philosophy, "Shouldn't we be potty training her? Isn't she old enough? I think she is ready."

I kept on repeating, "as soon as school starts we'll go to the store and pick out panties and a more kid friendly potty as our potty training kick-off."

Brian came home with a birthday present of panties 5 days before school started. They were her favorite present and she immediately insisted, "I no wear diapers. I wear hun-ders (unders, like underwear)."

Opening Her "Unders" 8/8/10

For the first few days she focused on not having an accident. She would would go ALL DAY without going potty and then have an accident. We would put her unders on top of her diapers at night. Then after a few days she got pretty good at going pee in the potty but would had poo accidents. But after two days of poo in the unders she figured out what "the poos" felt like and has only had one poo accident since. After a week she was basically potty trained. Crazy easy.

She really didn't like wearing diapers at night. ME NO WEAR DIAPERS!!! So we started to go without. She did pretty well at first but then started to have accidents so we went back to diapers at night which led to this oft repeated phrase, "Me No Wear Diapers DAY! Kate wear diapers!" After a week of dry diapers at night we stopped diapers at night and she has only had one or two accidents since then. I am sooo proud.

But it is nothing we did. That girl has a mind of her own and a bladder of steal. Even when we were first potty training she could go hours without going. I love being able to run errands without worrying about her. She also gets very angry when I try to get her to go potty. "Me Go 'READY!" Or wash her hands. On the plus side of independent she also wipes herself and will often dump out the potty. She does a pretty good job and rarely leaves "skid marks" in her panties.

I guess the journey is not really over. Colleen still needs to make the transition to the Big Potty but I am content for now.