Saturday, June 12, 2010

potty training post #3, nap & night diaper training

Thumper is now completely potty trained at 2.5 years. I'm so very happy! The kids around her aren't quite yet so I can see that sometimes it's biological. Because apparently she just has a large bladder and can hold her pee from the time she sleeps till morning, which is usually 10-12 hours.

Between 2 and 2.5, Thumper was already dry during day nap and 25% dry during night nap. But we'd still put her in training pants because we were a bit lazy. That and the fact that I couldn't find the time to buy my supplies. I needed to buy some waterproof bedsheets and chocolate cover raisins. But we were getting ready for it by restricting liquid intake at night and drinking at most half a glass of milk or just have her drink soup I cook.

Finally, around 2.5, I decided to get my act together. All the stories I've been reading and people I know successfully train their kids around 2.5 or so and I knew for sure Thumper was ready by then.

So on the day I finally found the raisins, we offered Thumper one to sample. (she normally doesn't eat chocolate). She loved it. We told her that if she didn't pee in her bed, we'd give her one when she woke up.

And the next morning, she did! Granted, she woke up at 7:30 or so instead of her normal 8:30. This actually makes sense to me because I know she doesn't pee in her sleep but rather wakes up in the morning for a bit before going back to sleep and I'd suspected that's when she pees.

For the next few days, she woke up earlier and earlier, sometimes as early as 6:30AM! That was kind of hard on us, esp because she doesn't really go back to sleep. And she had accidents twice. We kept to our promise and didn't give her any chocolate covered raisins during those days.

Because I didn't want to get up early, I finally gave in to the waking her up before we go to sleep (around 11PM) to pee method. I don't like this method because my mom did it to us and I feel that that's why I still wake up in the middle of the night right now.

But the method did work for a few days. Until one night when we'd put her to bed too late (10PM) and woke her up at 11PM to pee. Because she was in her first deep sleep period, she DID NOT like being woken up and she cried hysterically for 15 minutes.

Needless to say, we gave up after that. I think she had one more accident but other than that she's been fine. I think it just took awhile for a bladder to adjust. She wakes up at her normal time now and pees prodigiously.

The whole thing took maybe 2-3 weeks? 2 weeks of waking up early and some accidents. 2-3 days of waking her up at 11PM and then we were home free.