Potty Training Update & Coupon

What an adventure potty training has been…or I should say is! In no way am I fooling myself into thinking my next child will be near this easy, but for some reason our daughter truly enjoys going potty and it has been incredibly easy. You may remember that she was only 20 months when we started this and now she is 22 months and really has it down. Even though she is dry most mornings, we still put a diaper on at night because she is in her crib and we’re not ready to tackle the toddler bed quite yet. She wears “big girl panties” at home but uses training pants in public. To entice her a little more into being consistent, we have a few tools and rewards that we have found to be very effective. These are certainly not new, but maybe they’ll be helpful for another new mom:

1. Book – she loves to read, so we now keep a book or two in the bathroom for her to read while sitting on the potty. This is especially useful if she needs to take her time. :-)

2. Stool – she can easily get on and off the potty by herself and it makes her feel like a big girl to do so.

3. Cookies/Treat – I took her to the store with me and gave her the option of animal crackers or teddy grahams. She chose animal crackers and gets one every time she successfully goes in the potty and not in her panties. We’ve recently switched to using stickers as a reward as well if she has received many cookies that day. The hard part is to stick to only getting them when she actually goes on the potty. If she tells us she needs to, but then does nothing on the potty, then no cookie.

4. Training pants – These are more for me than for her to be comfortable out in public. (I’d rather not have to explain to a manager why clean-up is needed on aisle 4). We still call these “panties” and explain that she cannot go in her panties.

We have had very few accidents and the accidents we have had were usually because I forgot that she said she needed to go. I’m learning just how little her bladder is and when she says she needs to go, “Just a minute” doesn’t work often. I’m so proud of her and glad to find that the expense of training pants is less than that of diapers (mainly because we only use 1 a day versus 3 or 4 diapers).

Now for the real reason you’ve taken the time to read this post – the coupon! :-)

$3 off Pull-Ups or $2/1 coupon (can print once a month)