Potty Time

This past weekend we decided that it was time to start potty training Hannah. We had read Potty Time 123 by Gary Ezzo. We had picked this particular book, because we had read other books by this author and were very impressed with some of his techniques. To give you a quick summary of the book, he basically teaches you how to potty train your child in 1-4 days. You have to place your child on the potty every 15-20 minutes for 1-4 days. So I was all excited about getting started and having a potty trained little girl in less than 4 days! I took Hannah to the store let her pick out her big girl panties and some treats. Now the Ezzos suggested using real panties instead of pull ups. Thank goodness I was not completely sold on the idea of just using big girl panties and bought some pull ups just in case.

Saturday morning was here and the potty training began. We started right when Hannah woke up. We went through the routine with the doll and the treats. The first 3-4 hours were horrible!!!!! Since we had loaded Hannah up on juice she was peeing everywhere. It seemed like the only time that she would pee was when she was not on the potty! After she soaked all of her big girl panties and the carpet we switched to the pull ups. The best decision of our lives!!!

By making the switch to pull ups our day was instantly better. Hannah started peeing and pooping in the potty and not on the carpet. Sunday morning came and for the first few hours she did not have one accident. She was doing great! I was really starting to think hey this might actually work. Although I was concerned that she would never say that she had to go potty. The book had mentioned that some children might be mentally ready to potty train and just not be physically ready. One indicator that they are physically is when they are waking up dry. Since she was not we decided that she just might not be physically ready yet. This decision made it very easy for us to call it quits. Since we were all stir crazy and most of the beautiful weekend was over, we decided to go to Fuji to celebrate Hannah doing such a great job and Paul's promotion at work. Of course after we ate we stopped for Paul and Hannah's favorite dessert, ice cream.

We are so proud of Hannah. She did great! We were so impressed with her going on the potty and for the length of time that she had to sit on the potty. I just hope that one day she will forgive me for not only including this on the blog, but for making her sit on that stupid potty for so long on such a beautiful weekend. So for now we are gradually potty training so we can all keep our sanity.