Starting a New Semester

You may remember that back in June Potty Training 101 was cancelled. Well, last week I re~enrolled Anna Claire and I am so happy to say that she is passing with flying colors. Mallory is auditing the class, so she is not totally invested in the experience at the moment. ;-)

So, I knew I wanted to try potty training again over Christmas break…partly because I knew Anna Claire was {still} ready, partly because their teachers at play school were going to start working a little on potty training, partly because Michelle was also planning to training Dylan, and partly because our experience over the summer, brief though it was, taught me a lot and I believed that now I was ready. Potty training is a huge commitment…it’s just as much about the children being ready as it is about the parents being ready.

I am still using the basic strategies from the 3~Day Potty Training method, paired with what I like to call the "gradual release of responsibility modified model for potty training" {based on my beliefs as an educator, of course ;-)} which basically means we started out slowly…

• we talked about wearing big girl panties and what it means to go potty a lot in the days before Christmas,
• Anna Claire wore big girl panties from breakfast up to nap time last Wednesday and Thursday {then pull~ups the rest of the day and when sleeping ~ we are day training only},
• Anna Claire switched to panties all day last Friday,
• we have made several trips in the car to and from my parents house in panties,
• Anna Claire has had only one accident since last Friday {it was Friday night; actually we all got a little preoccupied cleaning up the playroom}, and...
• today Anna Claire wore panties to playschool with no accidents!
• Oh, and m&m's help a lot.

We aren’t going pants~free and we don’t sit on the potty on any kind of schedule. I pretty much have just been asking Anna Claire about 6425 times a day to tell me if she has to go potty. Sometimes she says she does and we run to the potty, sometimes I see that look on her face and take her to the potty, and sometimes she just goes to use the potty all by herself and we only know about it after the fact. I know this sounds too easy. Do not worry. I have been warned about the possibility of regression and rebellion, and Mallory is living proof that not all children {even twin sisters} are ready to potty train at the same time.

Right now Mallory is wearing pull~ups during the day and a diaper at night, but we haven’t seen so much as a drop of pee~pee in the potty in weeks, though she will sit on the potty frequently and try to go. Mallory really wanted to wear big girl panties Sunday after dinner and she had three accidents in 45 minutes despite me asking her over and over if she had to go potty. She will be ready in her own time {it may be sooner, it may be later} and we are okay with that. The bottom line with Mallory is that she is so strong willed that I completely believe once she decides she wants to be potty trained, she’ll just do it and it will be done. I think she just hasn’t made up her mind yet and right now there is no convincing her otherwise. ;-)