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Oh man. Next week I am potty training Bean.
At 23 months I feel like she’s been ready for a while.
According to this list, she’s ready. But I don’t really pay attention to those things, my mommy instincts have been telling me.
I believe her body’s been telling me as well.
Since last June, Bean has been suffering from chronic diaper rashes. I’ve tried everything. New diapers, numerous creams, airing out, different wipes, cloth wipes, frequent changes, soaking her butt, dietary changes, but nothing has worked. The next logical place our minds went was going diaper free.
I haven’t read much about how to potty train toddlers because I’m not a fan of reading parenting advice online or through books. Instead, I decided to take advice from my mom and what feels right for our family.
We’re not doing pull ups or even diapers at night. We’re going full throttle here and using undies. I’m going to take her to Target this weekend to pick out some big girl undies and hope that makes her excited. We know that being completely diaper free will result in a lot of accidents, but we’re okay with that. We don’t want to take a lot of steps in potty training. We’re not fans of going from diapers to pull ups and then from pull ups to undies. We want to cut out the middle man. We’re also doing this because if Bean can feel how uncomfortable it is to use the bathroom on herself, maybe she will be willing to use the toilet. Diapers and pull ups pull the urine away from the skin, causing little irritation. But we actually want the irritation. We want her to think, “Oh I don’t like the feeling."
We aren’t using a potty. We don’t want to transition from diapers to a potty and then a potty to the toilet. I don’t want to clean out potties or carry them around and we want her to know that a toilet is a toilet is a toilet. So no matter where we go she’ll know what a toilet is and that she can use it.
I’ll be getting up with Bean in the middle of the night at intervals. This is something we got from my mom who said she did this with us until finally we didn’t have to go. Even if Bean chooses not to wake up enough to use the toilet or refuses to use it at night and pees in her bed, we are hoping that the uncomfortable feeling of a wet bed will trigger something in her. She may wake up crying from the wet bed that now needs a linen change and that’s okay.
To help with keeping her dry at night we wont be giving her water after 6 pm and we will limit her water intake at dinner. She will be free to drink water as much as she wants during the day (encouraged actually so she can have more opportunities to pee) so we don’t believe limited and no water in the evening will do irreversible damage to her. Hopefully this will help with no accidents at night, hopefully resulting in more dry nights.
I know that she may not be ready despite what I think. So if the first few days are hell for her then we’ll wait. I don’t want to scar her or anything but I think we Moms know a thing or two about our kids and I hope I’m correct in thinking this is a transition she’s ready for too.
I foresee this being a huge adventure and I have a lot I want to share (no pictures of my kid on the toilet though) so prepare yourselves for detail accounts of potty training.
Do you have any suggestions for me? Things you’ve done or maybe your mom did to help potty train?