Oh my poor blog! What happened?? Well, I guess I should confess that I used to write my blog posts while "watching" my lectures for school. After a few months I realized I wasn't getting much out of my lectures and needed to focus (surprise! surprise!), but then I just couldn't find the time to blog, and I was tired of sitting at the computer.
Anyways, obviously a lot has happened since my last post (Thanksgiving!!). I never even talked about Christmas. Maybe someday I'll catch up, but right now I'd rather talk about potty training.
Never in all my planning did I think we'd be potty training Lily at 20 months. I was prepared to wait until after our trip back to the States this summer, and do it sometime in August/September.
Lily developed a bad diaper rash at the end of March that turned into a fungal infection. We tried every cream and prescription we could, but the only thing that made any difference was leaving her diaper off and letting her run around naked all day. Jim and I just so happened to buy a potty seat right before all this because it was on clearance, so we thought we'd start putting her on it just to see what she thought (and to reduce the number of messes we were cleaning up all day). I think it was the afternoon of the second day that she actually pee'd in the toilet, and we all clapped and cheered (Susan was here by then) and she LOVED the attention. I think she was hooked at that point.
That night we made the decision to dive in and do full time potty training. Up until then we were still putting diapers on her when we left the house, then taking them off when we got home. I think we stayed inside for about 3-4 days and finally the 4th day she was completely accident free. She's really done so good for her age, I'm shocked. In the three weeks we've been working on it, I really don't think she's had more than 10 accidents. Our only challenge now is with public toilets. Sometimes she obsessed with new toilets and goes a million times (she went three times at the pool in 10 minutes before her swimming lesson started on Monday) and other times she refuses to go. Those times are so frustrating! I know she needs to go, and she keeps telling me she needs to, but then we go to the bathroom and she sees the potty and says 'no' and leaves; 5 minutes later we do the same thing. I've just learned that if she starts doing this to just go home and let her use the bathroom at home; we're never far from home anyways and she'll get over it soon enough.
She's had 4 days of school since we potty trained, and the last 2 days have been accident free. I know she's still going to have lots of accidents, but I really don't think it could have gone better if we had waited 6 months. It was really stress free for me because I wasn't expecting much. I knew if she wasn't making any progress by the time her rash was gone that we'd just go back to diapers.
I think one of the best parts is now she claps for me and Jim when we go to the bathroom and says "Yayyy Mommy/Daddy!!!" It's adorable.
Anyways, obviously a lot has happened since my last post (Thanksgiving!!). I never even talked about Christmas. Maybe someday I'll catch up, but right now I'd rather talk about potty training.
Never in all my planning did I think we'd be potty training Lily at 20 months. I was prepared to wait until after our trip back to the States this summer, and do it sometime in August/September.
Lily developed a bad diaper rash at the end of March that turned into a fungal infection. We tried every cream and prescription we could, but the only thing that made any difference was leaving her diaper off and letting her run around naked all day. Jim and I just so happened to buy a potty seat right before all this because it was on clearance, so we thought we'd start putting her on it just to see what she thought (and to reduce the number of messes we were cleaning up all day). I think it was the afternoon of the second day that she actually pee'd in the toilet, and we all clapped and cheered (Susan was here by then) and she LOVED the attention. I think she was hooked at that point.
That night we made the decision to dive in and do full time potty training. Up until then we were still putting diapers on her when we left the house, then taking them off when we got home. I think we stayed inside for about 3-4 days and finally the 4th day she was completely accident free. She's really done so good for her age, I'm shocked. In the three weeks we've been working on it, I really don't think she's had more than 10 accidents. Our only challenge now is with public toilets. Sometimes she obsessed with new toilets and goes a million times (she went three times at the pool in 10 minutes before her swimming lesson started on Monday) and other times she refuses to go. Those times are so frustrating! I know she needs to go, and she keeps telling me she needs to, but then we go to the bathroom and she sees the potty and says 'no' and leaves; 5 minutes later we do the same thing. I've just learned that if she starts doing this to just go home and let her use the bathroom at home; we're never far from home anyways and she'll get over it soon enough.
She's had 4 days of school since we potty trained, and the last 2 days have been accident free. I know she's still going to have lots of accidents, but I really don't think it could have gone better if we had waited 6 months. It was really stress free for me because I wasn't expecting much. I knew if she wasn't making any progress by the time her rash was gone that we'd just go back to diapers.
