Potty Training Cadence

What a roller coaster ride! We are at the end of our first (work) week of potty training. I knew training Cadence would be different, and in all likelihood more difficult, but part of me still hoped it would be an easy three days like it was with Adelaide. NOPE! Oh well…so here’s where we are with Cadence.

Day One – Naked Day

Easily our best day of the week! From her first pee-of-the-day to her last, she made it to the potty EVERY TIME. She even had a dry nap time! I was so pleased. She didn’t poop on day one. So it was concerning that we didn’t get to practice that part, but I was extremely optimistic about the rest of our week.

Method

A little bit about my chosen method…I have the 3 Day Potty Training eBook (use coupon code “caterpillar” to save 20%!), so I’ve taken most of my queues from there, but tweaked it to work easily for our family. Some bullet points:

• I took off her diaper Monday morning and threw out the rest! Not really though… I’ll be donating our leftovers to friends who can put them to good use, but the sentiment is the same. We’re done! No more! You’re a big girl now! Yay!
• I completely cleared my schedule, and made sure Adelaide was occupied (at school) for the majority of the day, so Cadence had my undivided attention.
• I kept her naked from the waist down, and made sure our little potty was in the room with us all day.
• I made a sticker chart for rewards. Each time she successfully used the potty, she earned a sticker. Each time she completed a row on the chart, she got a prize (puzzles, coloring books, stickers, books, etc, all found at the dollar store). The number of circles in each row increases, and the hope is that by the time she finishes the chart, she’ll be solidly potty trained, and she won’t expect a reward for every time she goes potty.

 

 

My favorite tip from the 3 Day Potty Training method: instead of asking her if she has to go all the time, I use the phrase “Don’t forget to tell mommy when you have to use the potty!”. It empowers her to make the decision about when to pee, while subconsciously reminding her to check-in with her body.

 

Day Two – Underwear

After our incredible success with day one (NO ACCIDENTS! NOT EVEN ONE!) I was excited to move on to underwear the next day.

Cadence was sad about losing her Mickey Mouse diapers so I had to swoop in quickly and show her how great her big girl undies are—Sophia the First and Frozen panties for-the-win! She was excited and put them on right away.

Then our day was much the same as the day before—about every 15 minutes saying, “Don’t forget to tell mommy when you have to use the potty!” and her answering “I won’t mommy!”. I also introduced “dry checks” where I’d tell her it was “time for a dry check”, and we’d check to make sure her undies were still dry. She was always very proud when she said, “Yup! They’re dry!”

We had one minor accident where she started to pee in her undies, but then stopped and finished in the potty, and a second accident when she couldn’t figure out how to pull down her undies fast enough, and wound up leaving a puddle right by the potty. But the big excitement on day two, was that she went poop in the potty! No mess! No accident! Woohoo!

We also had our first outing at the end of day two—much earlier in our potty training than recommended, and earlier than I would have liked, but it was a doctor’s appointment for Adelaide to get her tonsils looked at (they’d been swollen since the head cold she came down with a week prior. Doc said she’s fine, btw!). Cadence did great on our outing! She peed before we left the house. And then again before we left the doctor’s office. So proud!

I was feeling pretty excited at the end of day two. Definitely some work ahead of us in regards to underwear, but that would come with practice.

 

Day Three – Practice

Day three was much more of our normal, pre-potty-training routine—walk Adelaide to school, come home and watch Sesame Street while mommy makes coffee and eats breakfast. Help Mommy with chores, play with mommy, play by herself, eat lunch and then nap.

She had two wet-undies accidents that morning, where she started going in her undies and then finished in her potty. My reminders were much less frequent on day three and I definitely think that played a role in her accidents. But no messes on the carpet that morning, so I wasn’t too upset 😉

She had another dry nap time and a good afternoon as well! But that evening went downhill, fast…

Wednesday was Adelaide’s first soccer practice of the Fall season, and I’m her coach, so right when Daddy got home from work, Adelaide and I had to leave to go to practice. Cadence was NOT happy about us leaving without her, and that attitude directly reflected in her potty habits that evening. Poor Matt had to clean up both pee and poop from the carpet. Can you say, Mama’s Girl??? Ugh…I felt awful about it.

 

Day Four – More practice

I went back to no-undies on day four because I really wanted to focus on making it to the potty ALL DAY. I kept her in loose pajama pants though, because I thought they’d be good to practice pulling down and up. Again, AWESOME going pee in the potty. 100% success, all day. Dry morning, dry nap, dry afternoon, not even a dribble! But poop…oh the poop…on the carpet…not in the potty…

The most frustrating part was that we had JUST used the potty minutes before, and she insisted that she was done and that she “didn’t have any poo-poos”. She got her sticker and went back to playing in her play kitchen while I was prepping lunch. Not three minutes later I walked into the playroom to play with her and that’s when I saw it, the poop smeared on the hem of her dress (oh, she decided she wanted to change out of her jammies and into a dress…). Ugh….at least it had JUST happened and the mess was contained in a small corner in the play room.

I was really hoping that her poop on the carpet from the night before was a result of her being mad that mommy was gone. But I had to scratch that theory off my list when she did it again while mommy was home and paying attention to her.

I talked with her A LOT about where poo-poo goes and what she’s supposed to do when she feels like she need to go poo, etc. She knows the answers to all of it. Practice is what she needs! And unfortunately we only get one opportunity a day (if even that!) and at the moment, there is no consistency to the time of day.

So that’s where we stand, after four days of potty training: Pee—AWESOME! Poo—Not so much…

Even with all of my frustrations around the poop, I’m still committed to this potty training business. We said “bye-bye diapers” on Monday and I meant it! I’m even sending back our last shipment of Amazon Subscribe and Save diapers and canceling our monthly shipments. It just got real y’all!