Poop!

I think it is official. Or at least official enough that I can blog about it. Mathilda is potty trained.
As in, all day, no diapers, tiny underpants, potty trained. She still wears a diaper overnight and for naps, but even those are mostly dry. My week home over the Thanksgiving holiday put the finishing touches on her accomplishment.
I'm proud. And a bit shocked that our cloth diaper days are practically over! I haven't even posted the "how we're still doing it" cloth diaper post! (Brief recap: we have purchased 2 bags of detergent and 2 diaper covers and 4 packs of biodegradable liners since her birthday in April. That's about $50 total in 7 months. In hindsight with the potty training, we only needed 1 cover, 1 bag of detergent and 3 packs of liners. Oh well).
How the heck does this happen with a 19 month old?
Let me explain.

1 year old, first time on the potty

For Tilly's first birthday we got her a froggy potty. We had her sit on it first thing in the morning and before bed.  If she peed- great! We clapped and cheered. If she didn't, no big deal, no pressure, no consequence.  Over the next few months we had her sit on the potty with increasing frequency.

early fall, evening potty ritual. Mama, why are you taking my picture? Can't you see I'm pooping???

I took the entire week of Thanksgiving off to hang out at home with Tilly. We went shopping, sang "Ring around the rosie" a million times, played outside, deepened our love of big trucks and buses, and also, most importantly, potty trained.

Day 1- No Pants! She spent the first day running around pantsless. Just the winter wind on her bottom. (Obviously we did not leave the house). We put her potty in the kitchen for fast accessibility. She didn't have 1 accident! Most times, she took herself, yelling, "poop!" as she ran towards the potty (no matter what the output, an exclamation of "poop!" is how she alerts us it's time to go). She was also rewarded with 1 single M&M if she went. And applause. Amazing what a little reward can do.

she's gonna kill me some day for these photos

Day 2- I tried putting pants back on her. This did not go so well. I think pants felt like a diaper, and she had a few accidents. So, we went pantsless again.

Day 3- underpants! After much talk about underpants NOT being diapers, we spent a day in underpants only.

new underpants!

into what's down below

Underpants day resulted in NO accidents!
We proceeded with adding pants, and then moving the potty back upstairs. Success! We are potty training professionals!

not so fast.

The potty at daycare is different than the potty at home. For the first time I was really jealous at not being a stay at home mom. I needed just a little bit more time. But since this dissertation was not planning on writing itself, I had to leave her at daycare.  Tilly managed her fear (and confusion?) of the daycare potty by not going. At all. All day. So we learned that not only does she have amazing bladder control, but if we were going to avoid a kidney infection and not completely confuse her as to where she should be peeing, we needed a solution. I picked up a soft toddler size potty seat at Target (god bless living 1 mi away) and worked on using that at home on the "big potty", then took it to school. Every day got better. A few accidents, mostly while playing in the yard or school gym, but by the end of the week she was using the school potty with normal frequency. The weekend was great- no accidents, dry for naps and overnight as well! On account of our 5 year anniversary we spent the weekend staycationing, and she spent the weekend shuttling between my parents, yet still had no accidents. I'm a little nostalgic about leaving the world of cloth diapers behind, but the lack of dirty diaper pail in the bathroom is pretty awesome.

In summary, the secret is- introduce the potty early with no consequences and lots of praise; use small, meaningful rewards; and if your kid doesn't take to it early, no big deal, take a break for a few months and try again.