Cal's Ride on the Potty Train

I was really not in a huge rush to potty train Callie.  I know, I know . . . less diapers, less money, blah, blah, blah.  But I was dreading it.  I didn't want to deal with the messes and the reminders and the nagging and the clean-up.  So, while we had bought a little potty chair for her months ago ("to practice") I hadn't really, shall we say, encouraged its use very frequently or consistently.  

All that changed on March 3rd.  The mom of one of Callie's friends, Quincy, mentioned to me she was so proud that he had pooped in his potty that morning.  I happened to mention that to Cal mid-poopy diaper change later that day, and Gregg suggested that she give it a try on her potty "like Quincy!".  Bam.  Done.  For the first time ever, she actually made something happen in that little potty.  And then she didn't look back.  I was not prepared to start such a training regimen, but since she seemed enthusiastic, I started spouting off ideas for keeping the motivation going.  "We could make a sticker chart!"  "And when you get five stickers in a row, you can have a special treat!"  "Let's pick out some special potty chart stickers at the store!"  "And we can get some cute underwear to wear, too!"  She was all on board with everything that came out of my mouth.

So it begins - the potty chair has found a home in
all parts of the house.  In the early days, it was here,
near the coffee table so she could work on a puzzle
or read a story while she waited for something to
happen.

One piece of construction paper + a sharpie +
not really straight lines + haphazardly drawn
stars = the simplest sticker chart ever.
It hangs on the pantry door, loud and proud.

She gets a sticker (shiny stars picked out at the
grocery store - it was that or primary colored dots -
not much of a selection there) for each successful
use of the pot.  When she hits a star (every five spaces)
she gets a little treat.

The treats are nothing more than the leftover
Halloween, Christmas and Valentine's Day candy
that we have stashed in the cupboard.  She thinks
it's awesome to choose something from the bag -
usually she opts for a dum dum (which I actually got
at the Valley Market from an over-zealous cashier
who gave me a whole sackful instead of just one in
the checkout line) or a gummy dinosaur).  I think it's
awesome that I didn't spend a dime on the sugar!

I had no underwear for Cal when this whole escapade
started.  She caught me off guard!  So she just wore a
diaper for a few days till we could get to the store
to pick some out (for FHE - party!).  We bought a
pile of panties - something like 16 pair.  Maybe a
titch on the excessive side, but actually handy to have
that many to reduce laundry loads of just underwear.

Not only was Cal motivated by hearing of Quincy using the potty,
she LOVED to read about Ashley and Michael learning how, too.
We read these books (both exactly the same minus the gender
difference) many, many times.  I liked that they were simple
to understand, and actually, we ended up sort of following the
same structure for training as these kids did in these books.
(But they didn't get sticker charts (poor Ashley and Michael!).

Before I knew it, she was potty trained.  Mostly.  It's definitely a process, I'm finding.  But for the most part, she's there.  She even stays dry at nap time (in her undies) and sometimes her diaper is dry in the morning when she wakes up.  We've had less than a handful of wet accidents (he first one was at Quincy's house, go figure), more than a couple of handfuls of poopy accidents (for some reason, that one has been harder to figure out - for me to time it on reminding her and for her to realize she needs to go), and dozens and dozens of successes (including at the church and at the lodge in Snowbasin!).

She's even weaning herself off the sticker chart buzz.  I don't know how many times she's gone potty, announced that she needs a sticker for her chart, and the promptly runs off to play something else without filling the square.  I'm not going to remind her about that anymore.  If she remembers, great.  If not, even better.  Soon her chart will be full and she'll be a pro and she'll finally get that strider bike we've been promising and bribing her with (to no avail) for months!

As far as advice for the future potty-trainers who may be reading: I'm definitely a believer (now that I've lived it - I didn't really know either way before, and like I said, I was dragging my feet on even trying to get started for real) in just waiting till she is ready.  Gregg's mom told me the magic age for her kids was three months before they turned three.  That seems to have held true for this little Blanchard, too!  I also think finding the right motivation was key.  We had been talking up getting a bike "when she can go potty all by herself" for ages, it felt like, and Cal was content to just wait on that someday idea, I think.  But the instant gratification of a sticker on a chart (which would not have worked last year, let me tell you - Ms. Scared of Anything Sticky!), and the added bonus of an extra treat every five to work towards, really seemed to work for her.  She doesn't seem traumatized by accidents.  Not as much as I am, anyway.  But she gets the cutest little proud grin when she is successful and that is more than worth it to me.

Updated 4/24/16 to add: As of April 22nd, she is no longer in diapers at night either.  I was getting tired of throwing away perfectly dry diapers each morning (or trying to remember to reuse them the next night - is that bad? I'm a cheapskate!) so we pulled the plug.  It's only been a couple nights so far, but she is doing so awesome!  She hasn't had a single accident (or wet diaper when she wakes up, I believe) since March 26th.  She completed the chart a few weeks ago and hasn't asked for a sticker or treat since.  We finally got around to ordering her much anticipated bike (turns out they're harder to find in stores than we were anticipating) and it should be arriving on Friday.  And one last note about motivation: she finally stopped the pooping in her underwear instead of in her potty issue as soon as watching Daniel Tiger became connected to pooping in the potty.  It's a common thing to hear, coming from the bathroom down the hall, "Mom!  Dad!  I went poop!  I watch Daniel!" Ha.  Bam!  What a girl!