Potty Training: Part 1

As Lexi's 2nd birthday approached, I decided to start thinking about potty training her. I went to the library and got a few different books on the subject. After perusing them, I couldn't decide if now was the time to train Lexi or not. She is showing some readiness signs, like interest in the potty, staying dry for a couple of hours at a time, and a willingness to sit still on her potty for at least 10 minutes at a time. But she can't really finagle her pants by herself yet, she doesn't care if her diaper is wet or poopy for long periods of time, and, the biggest strike against her, a new baby is coming in 10 weeks. All the experts say don't even bother to try to train your child if a new baby is coming soon - they will inevitably regress to diapers once the baby, who wears diapers and seems to get all of Mommy's attention, arrives.

On top of these concerns, I couldn't settle on which approach to take with Lexi: the aggressive train-in-a-weekend approach, the slow-but-steady train over several weeks approach, or the let-them-train-themselves-when-they're-three-and-a-half approach.

I decided it would be nice if Lexi were trained before Anna gets here so, at the very least, we won't have two in diapers at the same time. So this week I took a stab at it.

We've had a potty for 6 months now. We've also been reading potty books for about that long. All we needed was underwear/training pants. So I took Lexi to Wal-Mart and got her both in Dora prints. Very exciting.

Monday morning, after breakfast, I put Lexi on her potty for about 20 minutes while she watched Backyardigans. After about 15 minutes, I thought I heard something. I asked Lexi if she peed. She came out of her TV trance long enough to say, "No, ma'am." When I got her up 5 minutes later, there was lots of pee in her potty. I praised her and acted very excited. She got a sticker on her potty chart and everything. That was the first and last time she really used the potty. The rest of Monday morning she peed in her training pants without warning me she was going to do it and without telling me after she did it. When it came time for her daily poop, which I can tell is coming due to her deer-in-the-headlights look, I told her to sit on the potty to go poop. She wouldn't budge. She refuses to move while pooping.

Tuesday morning was a repeat of Monday, minus the successful TV-induced pee.

Wednesday morning I forgot all about training pants until about 10 AM. At which point I decided Lexi doesn't care to train yet, so neither will I. She can't tell when she's about to go, and she doesn't tell after she goes, so why waste the time and money (training pants are expensive - why are there no off brands??), especially if she is just going to regress once Anna gets here?

I'm sure most experts think I threw in the towel too soon, and I probably did, but until they volunteer to come train Lexi for me, I won't lose sleep over it.