Potty Training, take 2

My big girl and her beautiful smile

So, in case you didn't know or forgot, we attempted to potty train Emily before we left Texas.  It was a no-go.  She wasn't ready and we were so stressed with the move, that we were not as a patient as necessary.  We decided to put it off a couple of months and pick it up again later.

Kyle had a work trip scheduled at the beginning of May, so my mom decided to come out and help me with the kids for a week.  I figured what better time to potty train than when I had a whole week's worth of help.  It turned out to be much easier than expected.


This time, I decided to modify our 3-day potty training approach.  I bought a couple of books that Emily loves and set a timer.  We did still ditch the diapers and go straight to undies, though.  I also reminded her every minute or two to tell mommy when she needed to go potty.  If there was an accident, we rushed straight to the potty.  One of her books, Duck Goes Potty, really helped the whole process.  I set a timer on my phone to go off every 15 - 20 minutes.  I just so happen to have a duck timer on my phone, so this was perfect.  She would race to the potty with her book, exclaiming that duck said it's time to go potty.  After a few successes, duck wasn't necessary anymore (but, she still liked to hear the timer so we kept it going for a few days).

By day 2, we were down to very few accidents and by day 3, we were at the zoo - no accidents at all.  She now goes to the potty all on her own and tells us whenever we are out and about. 

In more recent news, she is also paci-free now.  After several failed attempts of getting rid of the paci (she even used 'broken' pacis that we cut the tips off of), she bit her tongue one day last week.  She cried that her paci hurt her tongue that night, so we told her to just hold her paci.  She never realized that her tongue had healed and was convinced her paci would hurt her tongue.  So, after a few days of holding it to go to sleep, she threw it in the trash.  Hasn't asked for it since.  She's getting so big!  All that's left before she attains full big girl status is transitioning from her crib (I don't see this one happening any time soon, though).  :)