Princess Potty Training

Potty training hasn't been a snap for Sav, mostly due to her casual desire to use the potty. Her friends are almost all potty trained and so being around them makes her want to use the potty and anywhere outside of our house she likes to use the potty too. We did a couple attempts at home wearing panties and after the first couple accidents she got freaked out and then declares "I don't like potty training!!" I don't want to force her, so we took a break.

We installed new toilet seats in our bathrooms (the old ones needed to go anyway) that have a child seat that can flip down. After removing the kids potties, I honestly didn't mind if she took a little while to potty train as long as I never had to clean out a gross potty again. Then came Sunday at church - Sav went potty six times, successfully. She's not drinking that much, but she can control it and is using it to get out of nursery over and over again. Ugh.

So I asked some Moms for advice and one suggestion was maybe she needs something bigger to be excited about. Hmm. M&Ms and stickers didn't work before, maybe it's not a food desire. I went to the Dollar Tree one night and noticed that they had out their Halloween items and picked up some butterfly wings and a princess crown that I thought might work as good motivators. I forgot them in the car and the next evening Sav saw them and was really interested. I said they were her princess prizes for going to the potty. This morning after I taught JZ I took her to the Dollar Tree to pick out her Princess Prizes. She walked next to me and got to pick out 15 prizes including stickers. We came home and made a sticker chart and every time she goes potty successfully she gets a sticker. When she gets 5 stickers she gets to pick a prize. I was skeptical, but today was like magic. I put her in a pull-up and for the rest of the day she told me when she needed to go potty. She had some sad moments when she was earning her prize, but when she picked her first prize boy was she happy. She got a play microphone that she says you sing into. She has been very jealous of my JZ microphone and I knew this would be her biggest desire. Second prize that she earned right at bedtime was a baby bottle with pretend milk in it so she got to take her baby doll to bed with her.

I hope tomorrow's potty energy continues. I figure after a couple days we'll switch over to panties when we are at home and hopefully form some good habits. Trial and error parenting. Let's just hope we keep moving forward :-)

Princess Prizes

Rocking the microphone

Glee

Singing

Sav and her microphone

Checking out her progress