About two weeks ago was when things really clicked for Meredith. Chad was in the bathroom downstairs and Meredith apparently needed to get in and potty. She didn't make it in time and there was a small mess right outside the bathroom door. She felt really bad, almost in tears, about it. This was when we think it clicked - she never used to get that upset about having an accident before (she would tell us she was sorry, but it wasn't very heartfelt) and never would be close to the bathroom door when it happened. It's almost as if she was telling us, "I was trying to get to the bathroom and I'm so sorry that I had an accident." From that moment on, she has been doing great! We still have accidents here and there, but nothing like before. I still need to remind her to go potty, but she does often initiate it. Right around this time, she also started staying dry for her naps and at nighttime. I would say that 5 out of 7 nights during the week she is completely dry after 12-13 hours. Amazing! Ironically, we just got Luke sleeping through the night and then Meredith calls out to us at all hours of the night (anywhere from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m.) telling us she has to potty. We are still trying to figure out how to handle that - do we teach her to go in the middle of the night with little to no lighting and getting up and down off a tall bed herself or just have her go in her diaper? She does pretty well with the logistics (getting up on the potty herself, wiping, etc.), but still struggles with getting certain pants on and off. One day, both kids will sleep through the night at the same time :)
One thing that helped us was getting rid of her little potty chair. I bought a toilet training seat and just have her step up to it. It's less messy and I think it empowers her too. She wants to be just like mommy and daddy.
I really have never figured out a good reward system. For a while, I was using her library books as a reward. If she had a good day, she could read her books. If she had an accident, they were taken away for the day. What seemed to help was when I made up a potty chart that gave her a reward after "x" number of potties. After 7 successful pees on the potty, she would get a reward. These rewards consisted of Dollar Tree items such as Winnie the Pooh matching cards, Sesame Street books, coloring books, etc. It was a real hit! I would take away one sticker for every accident she had. For poops in the potty, I would give her a little piece of chocolate (I bought a bag of chocolates that you put in chocolate chip cookies). This method seemed to work pretty good. I found that as she got better, she was getting rewards every few days. I wanted to stretch out the rewards, so I eventually only gave her stickers when she told me she had to go and she went in and finished the process from start to finish with little to no help from me. As you can see, she eventually got stickers for this and I let her put them wherever she wanted to on the chart. Because of this, she never asks for rewards anymore, so I simply give her a sticker when she potties and she either puts it on her shirt or on the chart. I still give her chocolate for poops, but eventually need to phase this out too or else she will have a mouth full of cavities at her first dentist visit next year.
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| All of the stickers she can choose from! |
I am just now getting to the point of letting her go out in public in panties. This past Sunday she asked if she could go to church in panties and we said yes. She stayed dry! I'm not sure when we will be brave enough to let her go all night without a diaper. We still have a ways to go on this whole process, but I feel like the worst is behind us (for now!).
