Potty Training and the Big Girl Bed

October was a big month for Edie. She conquered Potty Training at the beginning of the month, and transitioned to a big girl bed at the end of the month - all this at age 26 months. I'm so proud of her and how well she did with both! That's the short story. Most of you might not be interested in the long story and all details so you can stop reading here, but i wanted to get it down so I can remember for the next baby when we get to that point. :)

Potty Training:
Edie has been sitting on the potty before naps and bathtime for a while, and reading lots of books about it - so we decided to go for the real deal. I really don't want to have 2 in diapers, and I wanted her to be well established with it before the baby comes so hopefully she won't regress. She definitely seemed ready, so we went with the "potty training boot camp" approach. We took an entire Friday to stay home, went straight to panties, and set the timer so she could go sit on the potty every 20 minutes and get the hang of not having a diaper on. A week or so before, we went and picked out some "Big Girl Panties" - Elmo, Abby, and Zoe (sesame Street) panties were her panty of choice and she was SO excited about them!

That first morning was rough, and i was starting to doubt if she was ready. I couldn't believe how often she had to go - even though it was small each time. I think she had something like 14 accidents to 3 successful go's before lunch. I was pretty discouraged, but decided to give it the entire day before giving up and waiting a few more months - and I'm so glad we kept at it.

After lunch, I stuck more closely to the timer, and she started to say "Potty Time" on her own every time the timer went off and she would run to the potty. She had been going on the big potty with an insert (she picked out a princess/flowered one for the upstairs potty, and a sesame street one for the downstairs potty), but I decided we needed to kick it up a notch for excitement purposes so I brought out her special small potty - which she LOVED, and that definitely helped. I also made a potty chart, and her reward each time she had a successful go on the potty was a sticker. It's amazing how something that simple can really motivate them. She was so excited to get another sticker on her chart each time she'd go potty! We did smiley face for #1, and a sesame street sticker for #2. When she got to the end of the row, she got to pick out a potty treat - I hit up the Target dollar section for some plastic zoo animals, sesame street coloring books, stamps, etc. I still diapered her for naptime and bedtime though, because she would always wake up with full diapers so i just didn't think she was ready to go that far yet. By that first evening, she was really starting to get it. Chip & Nora, and Lucy & Abigail came over for dinner and the girls made a huge deal of her going on the potty. And they went on the potty in front of her so she could see the big girls doing it too. That definitely helped!

The special potty, and the potty chart. Even though she doesn't get stickers anymore, she's still pretty proud of her chart, and brings it out every now and then to show off!

By Saturday(day #2), she only had 2 accidents. We even went to Davis' birthday party and she stayed dry the whole time. For the first week or so, we tried not to do too much outside of home so we could really focus on it, although day 2 was a birthday party, day 3 was church, and day 4 was the pumpkin patch! She really picked it up quickly after that first day though, I just had to remember to put her on the potty every so often. We put the little "special" potty away after a week or 2, and she's back to using a regular potty, sometimes with an insert, sometimes without. The timer only lasted for the first 2 days, and same with the stickers. After a couple days, she didn't need that for motivation anymore. I got a travel potty for outings, and that was extremely helpful especially in the first couple weeks and for events like tailgating at the UK game, the pumpkin patch, etc.

It's been about a month now, and her accidents are few and far between. On our trip to Chicago last week, she only had one accident the entire trip and thankfully it was not on the airplane! I am definitely not a fan of pull ups. She has to wear a pull up to school, and every thursday afternoon, or friday morning following school is when she will usually have an accident. I think pull ups just confuse them. So we are all panties, all the time - other than school. She's gotten so when she wakes up from naps, or in the morning she takes off her diaper herself and wants to go straight to the potty. Usually nap time diapers are dry now, so starting today we are eliminating that diaper now too. We might hang on to the nighttime diaper for a little while longer. She drinks so much water at night, and although some mornings now her diapers are dry, there are still a few mornings that she wakes up pretty wet. She's also gotten much better about telling us when she needs to go - so it's not quite perfect yet, but all in all I'd definitely say she's potty trained and our efforts were a huge success :)

Big Girl Bed:
Edie has always been a great sleeper, and has loved her bed. She would wake up and play quietly for up to an hour sometimes so i was hesitant to break that cycle. Selfishly, it was kind of nice having an extended morning or naptime, with her happily confined. I was putting away her laundry while she was playing in her crib after her nap one day though, and she tried to climb out (this after i tried to get her out when i first went in there and she wanted to stay and play). So we decided it was time for a new bed since she was climbing out. This is another thing I wanted to do anyway well before baby #2 comes so Edie didn't feel like she was kicked out of her beloved crib for the baby.

If we are still in our current house when baby #2 comes, they will share a room - so I didn't want to get a true big girl bed like a twin or my old sleigh bed which is what I'd like to use for Edie eventually. There's just not space if they are going to share a room. Rob and Sara loaned us their toddler bed. Edie, who absolutely adores Clayton & Davis, thought it was so exciting to have "Davis' bed" so that helped with the transition. We set up the bed, and that first naptime didn't go so well. She went down easily in it, but i heard her up and jumping around for the entire naptime. She was so tired from that though, she went down early at 7pm that night and slept until 8am - all night in the big girl bed!

First night in the big girl bed

From there on out it's been pretty easy, she's never even thought about her crib since then. She is back to her usual 2-3 hour nap, and will sleep all night in her bed waking up between 7-8am most days. Since the sticker chart was such a success for potty training, I did make her a new sticker chart for staying in her bed at naptime or in the morning so she doesn't come out of her room. For the most part, she's been pretty great about that. She will get up and get books or toys and take them back to bed with her if she wakes up before we come to get her. Another plus to the bed transition timing was it made our trip to Chicago easy. The hotel supplied some bedrails, and she slept in the full size bed all night with no problem- so no hauling a pack and play on the trip or having to rent a crib!