Day 2 started off with happy faces and sky high expectations. Reinforcements were here (daddy) and Saturday was going to be great. Pants and small trip outside the house. Boom. Let’s do it! We are ready to continue our success from day 1! She gets it and she’s ready to succeed!
The day starts out great. We are doing crafts and Isabel assures us she will let us know when she has to go potty. Jake made this brilliant piece of artwork. I’m loving life.
9am: Okay…no problem…we had an accident through our pants. She just forgot that pants didn’t equal diaper. Let’s just change those pants, have a little reminder about needing to tell dad she has to pee and get back on the success train.
10am: Okay. Another accident. No problem. She’s only 2.5. it’s tricky. She’s been wearing diapers her whole life and now she can’t see that she’s peeing. Let’s get a new pair of pants and a shirt and find the potty next time.
1115 am: Ouch. This is getting a little demoralizing and morale is taking a hit. Maybe if we just focus a bit more of our attention on her and really pay attention to her pee pee signals. (note: A cup of wine helps the sting of failure).
I’m feeling a little down now and frustrated. We’re using bribes to get her to sit on the toilet and ‘try’. She gets to watch Daniel tiger or videos of Isabel on our phones. We are determined to get a success before nap time. Well…as stated earlier, Isabel is smart…too smart. Now she’s using sitting on the potty to get what she wants. Mentally I’m thinking to myself ‘fine. Whatever. As long as she goes potty in the toilet, she can watch all the Daniel Tiger she wants’.
1 pm – Stalling before nap hoping for a win
115 pm – more stalling
130 pm – yup…more stalling, no more pees or poos.
2:00 pm – Okay. Forget it. Everyone but Jake is melting down now. It’s time for nap. We put the diaper on, read some books, and hope she doesn’t go during nap time.
4 pm – Isabel wakes up. Jake is going to the grocery store, but now Isabel wants to come. We both figure she’ll pee soon and then we can all go as a family. Nope. Wrong. No pee…still waiting. So…we decide to go to the Grocery store anyway. But…we prep. We put Isabel in the wagon in case she pees in the store (then at least its just on our stuff and not all over a grocery store). This is by far the fastest and most stressful grocery trip. We are flying around Whole foods, divvying up the list like seasoned veteran shoppers. SUCCESS! (or what counts as success on a day otherwise filled with failure). No accidents in the grocery store!
We get home and Jake cooks a great meal with some assistance from Isabel. Meanwhile, I’m busy failing at potty training…accidents 5 or 6 happen (or maybe 4 and 5, or 7 and 8…I’ve stopped keeping track). At this point, I’m uber frustrated with everything. I yell at Jake for cooking and not helping more at potty training (because I’m losing my sanity).
Bed time comes. Still no poops on day 2. With resignation and frustration, we put Isabel to bed and agree to move back to block 1 – naked time potty training. Day 2 sucked. But…we are ready for a successful day 3. She was great at block 1, let’s get some wins on the books again!