No go

Potty training. No other parenting challenge strikes fear in this mommy's heart quite like those two little words (except for perhaps teenage years, but thankfully that is still a ways off). After what seemed like an endless amount of time getting Jack accident-free, I have been a little reluctant (lazy?) in training Kaitlin. The trainer has to be as ready as the trainee and in this case the trainer needed a bit more time.

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So imagine my excitement when my friend called me to say she had just trained her little girl in a mere 6 hours with the book Toilet training in less than a day. I was ecstatic to learn of this option that would have us tossing the rest of our pull-ups by the end of the day! So my friend armed me with the book and all the supplies needed to get this monumental task started. After reading the book and going back through it to take notes I knew that the next day would be "training" day.

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This past Saturday Erick took Jack on a hike and to some other destinations to give Kaitlin and me the one-on-one time we needed for this process. I was ready, Kaitlin was ready, so we got started. I had the counter full of drinks and yummy snacks that I knew she would be excited about having. Her special "treat" choices included Smartfood popcorn and those frosted pink and white animal cookies (remember those?) since I knew pink would be the enticing color. The idea behind the training is that you load them up with lots of liquids in a short amount of time in order to give them ample opportunity to "perform" and be successful in doing their thing. Therein lies the problem. She had filled up on so much milk and water that she was literally bursting and could not go 5 minutes without having to pee. So we spent more time mopping up the floor than dumping potty into the toilet. Fortunately she was able to potty in the chair twice so we were somewhat successful but she kept having accidents due to the insane amount she drank! She couldn't possibly hold it in long enough to go sit. She was getting so discouraged and frustrated at this, as I was too at this point, that I decided that we were going to stop for the day (we had been doing the "procedure" for about 3 hours). If we're both in tears it's just not going to help anyone!

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So I've decided I'm going to get out my copy of The Everything Potty Training Book for inspiration. We'll probably go the less-pressure route and she'll just sit on the potty at intervals throughout the day and wear cloth training pants to help remind her what to do if she's suddenly wet. Charts and stickers will also probably be involved. Hopefully the lure of new big-girl underpants after completing a week of dry pants will be all the motivation she needs. The silver lining though is that she has actually done #2 on the potty twice since Saturday without any problem at all (phew!) so I'm thinking she'll be out of pull-ups soon, but on her own terms.

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I can't wait!