Potty Training 101

Wow... where do I begin!?!?

I have decided that expecting parents should skip childbirth classes and find a potty training course! This has been on of the hardest tasks that we have faced!

We officially started potty training around here a week before Josie's 2nd birthday. I felt like she was still young to understand, but all she was talking about was "potty talk!" She was very aware of when she did it and talked about her baby doing it all of the time. I am a firm believer that you shouldn't start potty training until your child starts showing interest. Josie's Grandmommy and JJ had bought her a very cute "potty" a while back and we decided to put it to good use! I asked for some advice from friends and thought that I was going to take the "cold turkey" approach and lock us indoors for a few days and conquer this battle. However, the stomach bug struck our house two weekends in a row and I never took that "hard core" approach. So, we are still working on it! I did like the idea that a friend gave me to let Josie go pick out "big girl panties" (opposed to pull ups). So, we went to Wal Mart and Josie picked out her Dora panties weeks ago! Well, she also spotted a Dora potty at the same time. So, I went with it and thought... "whatever works!" So, now we have two potties and she loves them both. It cracks me up because some days she loves her original potty and refuses to go to the Dora potty even if we are close by it and vise versa!

The very first time that Josie went to the potty was the day before her 2nd birthday. I was so glad that Josh happened to be home when it happened! We jumped, screamed, gave high fives and ate lots of M&M's! Josie is very aware of the potty situation when she is home, but she NEVER mentions it when we are out in public or at church or anywhere. They say that Josie has gone potty at school several times, but not consistently. So, we are using the laid back approach and she wears pull ups or her real Dora panties at home and a diaper at night to sleep in. She wears pull-ups at school. We have gone through LOTS of M&M's at our house (gotta love bribery!)