We have begun our grand adventure into the world of potty training.  The potty and step stool have been purchased, along with the pull-ups and we are ready to rid our lives of diapers.

Maya has probably been ready to give this whole potty training thing a try for a while now, but we wanted to hold off until after all the craziness and traveling of the holidays were over and we into a regular routine again.

So, a couple of weeks ago Maya and I hit up the “potty” department of our local Target and she helped pick out her new potty.  We opted for adapter seat type that sits on the regular toilet (just makes the regular toilet their size!) and a step stool to help her get up onto the toilet.  I showed her the options hanging on the wall and she picked out the Sesame Street one.  With the potty all picked out I grab a step stool and a pack of training pants and home we went to try it out.

As I was unloading the rest of our bags Maya was in the bathroom practicing putting the potty seat on the toilet.  I asked her if she wanted to pee in the potty, she said “ya” very enthusiastically.  Inside I was jumping for joy thinking this potty training thing was going to be a piece of cake.  Ya, not so.  She freaked out when I took her diaper off and sat her on the potty.  She was terrified of it.

After a little rethinking I decided that I would just let her try it out at first with her pants on.  For the next couple of days I would ask her if she wanted to try out her potty.  She would tell me that she did, but with her pants on  It seemed to be working out well.  She was warming up to the potty and getting the hang of the lingo and the flushing the toilet part.  I figured the best time to try with the diaper off was going to be at bathtime because she almost always pees the second she gets in the tub and she would need to get naked anyway.  The next bathtime I stripped her down like normal and asked her if she wanted to try using the potty.  She hesitantly agreed (score).  I helped her up on to the potty and told her to try going pee in the potty.  She did, she peed in the potty (double score).  Lorne and I made a big deal about it shouting “yeah” and clapping for her.  The girl loves when you clap for her and wanted to go again so we would clap again, it was too funny.

Over the next week or so I managed to get her to sit on the potty everyday at least a couple of times and she was actually peeing in the potty at least once a day, most days twice.  We were making some head way, getting the hang of things, when Maya got sick.  It has been a week now since she last used the potty.  It sits, lonely, beside the toilet waiting to be used again.  She hasn’t had any interest in trying again since she got sick and now she is diarrhea so we’ll hold off again until she feels better and her “going” schedule is back to normal.

I don’t think it’ll take to long to train her once we can get back into it.  I figure we’ll spend a little more time just testing the waters and putting her on the potty every so often before we start using the training pants.  We’ll then try the training pants for a little while until she gets the hang of not going in her diaper anymore and telling us when she has to go.  At that point we’ll try it out with real big girl underwear.  I’ll keep you posted of our progress.

If you have any tips for us we’d love to hear them?  Any tried and true methods to this potty training madness, anything we should avoid?