Avery is ready to take on the next milestone in her short, young life. But Mommy isn’t.
For a few months now, Avery has talked about the potty, told us when she wet or dirtied her diapers and played with the potty chair. So we decided to start potty training after the excitement of the Japan Clarks’ visit subsided and when we ran out of diapers. This weekend marks that time.
We’ve decided to try the Three-Day Potty Training method. I know what you’re thinking…that can’t be done in three days! The method isn’t anything special, but it all makes very good sense. Basically you get rid of all diapers, put underwear on your child and stay at her side for three days straight while playing, watching TV, coloring and doing other activities. You run her to the bathroom as soon as she starts to have an accident. Then you praise her for any success. After the three days, she’ll understand the signals her body is sending her and will go to the bathroom on her own. We’re going to try it this weekend and see what happens.
I’m sure she’ll pick it up pretty quickly since she seems very ready and is so excited about wearing big girl underwear and using the potty chair. Mommy, on the other hand, is nervous about this whole endeavor. I don’t want her (or me!) to get frustrated or upset when things do go well. I don’t want to lose our freedom when we are out and about because I’m always going to have to look for bathrooms everywhere we go. And honestly I don’t want to lose my little baby! But I’m certainly looking forward to not buying any more diapers!
Avery was such a breeze with everything else (weaning from breastfeeding to the bottle, stopping the pacifier cold turkey, sleep training to sleep through the night, weaning from the bottle to the sippy cup) that I will be surprised if this doesn’t go as planned.
So the three of us will be holed up together at home this weekend as we potty train little Miss Avery. We’ll try to check in with updates, but I’m anticipating a busy and probably stressful weekend that hopefully will be filled with a lot of fun family time as we watch our precious baby continue to grow into a little girl!