This might be TMI for some, if not most, but I'm a proud mama right now, so I'm about to shout it from the rooftops -- you've been warned.
SAMANTHA USED THE POTTY!!!!
(Yes, this is the exact picture I texted to Chris, that's how excited I was. )
I'll be the first to admit, I didn't think I would be writing this post, like this, so soon... in fact, I had a completely different potty post laid out, but I almost feel like it might be moot to proceed as I was intending, but we will see.
I will take it back a little bit and explain a little about how we got to this point.
A month or so ago - maybe two, since it really happened while we were on vacation in July - Samma was almost shy and wanting privacy while she was pooping (I told you this was going to be TMI), so much so that she started standing in the corner while she was going so that we weren't so much around to bother her. Now, she would let us know when she had gone in the past, but the corner thing was a completely new thing to us, so we figured it was going to be time sooner than later.
I had also started to bring her into the bathroom with me when I had to go, and explained it to her as best as I could so that she could understand it on a toddler level. Soon enough, she was asking for her own potty... and who am I to deny my daughter anything??!
After some searching and review-reading on Amazon.com, I came upon this:
I figured a 4.5/5 star rating with 597 reviews has to stand for something, right? And I asked Samma what color she wanted, and she specifically asked for pink, so pink she received.
I also wanted to get her a potty book so that she would have something to "read" while she was on the potty... again, I turned to Amazon and found this one:
Again, 4.5/5 stars with 137 reviews definitely got my attention with this one. The book itself, is pretty fantastic -- it's easy to read with her, and the pictures are gentle while at the same time able to convey the... event, I guess, of using the potty. Samma loves reading this book with us, and there are times when she seems to be reading the book at us instead of vice versa. This definitely gets my thumbs-up as a decent way to teach a 2-year-old about the bathroom.
So once the potty was received, Samma loved that it was hers, and every time I brought her in with me, she had to sit in her potty too. Full dressed, mind you, but it was HER "pink potty" and Mamma's "big potty."
There were a couple of times when she specifically asked to go up stairs and use the potty, so I would bring her up, strip her, and sit her down while she tried to go. I would give her a good 5-10 minutes each time, but alas, to no avail. It's OK, I told her... it's OK to try, and we'll keep trying. I mean, she's not even 2 yet... I'm going to let her set the pace for this - there's no rush.
The other thing we started doing, within the last week or so, was sitting her down on the potty before she took a bath, and up until tonight we didn't get anything out of her. Now tonight, I stripped her down, and asked her if she wanted to try the potty before we got in the tub, she said yes, and sat right down. I told her if she felt like she needed to pee, to go ahead and do it..... and sure enough, she did! I was in shock, I think I scared her... but I got down and hugged and kissed her, and told her how good of a job she did, and I think she understood. I continued to applaud her while she was in the tub, and she would smile at me saying "I used the potty!" And that's where the picture above that I sent to Chris came in.
So where do we go from here? Your guess is as good as mine. This is one thing I definitely have no experience with, and even less knowledge about, so just like everything else, it's going to need come research. I've received a couple of good emails from various parenting websites, like this Potty Training 101 from Parents.com, plus I've been flipping through What to Expect - The Toddler Years for some insight as well. At this point, however, I don't think I'm going to change any of what we've been doing, at least not much anyway. I may try to schedule some "potty time" like first thing in the morning and before getting ready for bed, to give her a little more chance to practice... but again, she's still not 2 yet, and I'm looking forward to discussing this with Sam's pediatrician when that appointment comes in the next couple of weeks.
But all that being said -- YAY! Go Samma! :)
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