potty talk

oh look, it's a post about about potty training! haha. i'm sure many of you are quickly making your exit from this post and that's ok. i just want to write about our experience so i can remember it later :) i promise not to get too gross. azalea is 34 months old right now, in less than 2 months she will be 3. i bought her a potty and undies for her 2nd birthday, with no intentions to jump right in, but just to have it around and start talking to her about it. she was no where near ready to potty train then and that was fine. the next 10 months were filled with adamant protest from her about anything potty related. actually - she loved reading books about the potty, watching videos about the potty, accompanying me to the bathroom, etc. but that's where her interest ended. so we waited. we would occasionally ask "do you wanna sit on the potty?" or "do you wanna wear undies?" and were always met with a resounding "NO!". ok then! i tried not to worry or compare when our friends with kids much younger than azalea were having success. i know every kid reaches milestones at their own pace, but i'm only human and can't help but compare sometimes. everything i read said "don't try to potty train soon after bringing a new baby home" it's a huge change for a kid and having them potty train (another huge change) at the same time is a lot for them to handle. but azalea was finally showing interest, so we decided to just go for it. 

i talked to our daycare lady to get her input on what works best. she has done daycare for over 30 years and has potty trained a kid or 50 ;) she told us to put undies on her (with plastic pants over them) and do not put diapers on her except for naps and bedtime. in her experience, it confuses kids to switch back and forth and it takes much longer for them to train. we were on board with this and decided to start on a sunday. azalea wore undies that day and for the next 4 days at daycare with almost no success on the potty. the strange part was, she wasn't having many accidents either...she was just holding it in almost all day. not good. we could put her on the potty a dozen times and she would just say "it's not working!". how do you "teach" a kid to pee? haha. i kept hoping for just one success, so we could praise her and remind her of how well she did. it wasn't until her 6th day in undies that she had some success....3 actually! she was sort of freaked out by our excitement over it, so we had to tone it down. haha. day 7 was my grandma's funeral and we were worried about having her away from home without a diaper on for so many hours, but it worked out. she ended up holding it the whole time because she was scared of the potty there, which isn't ideal, but no accidents. the rest of the weekend was good too...not a success every time, but most of the time! 

the next week things continued to improve. she still had times where she would scream like she was being tortured if we suggested sitting on the potty (drama queen), but overall she cooperated. she had successes at daycare, as well as a couple friends' houses. she doesn't really tell us when she needs to go yet and still holds it for quite a few hours, but i think after 2 weeks, we are basically there. we feel confident taking her places in undies, especially if she goes before we leave. she has been wearing diapers still for naps and at night, but she wakes up dry most of the time, so we probably won't do it for much longer. as with all milestones with azalea, i stress about her not "getting it" and it taking "too long", but she always figures things out. a note to my future self :)