Potty Training

At the beginning of October I decided to take a long weekend and potty train Carly. She had been showing signs of readiness for a while - Actually, she was already going on the potty (for MONTHS!), she just wouldn't tell us when she had to go. I opted for hard core potty training - No pull-ups. No padded panties. No mercy. I used lots and lots of positive reinforcement and never uttered a negative word. We high-fived and cheered her victories together. She was so proud and excited. And so was I.

Carly "threw away" her baby diapers and pull-ups (we gave them to our friend with twins just three months younger than Carly).

We played outside most of the time (better for cleaning up messes, my dear). 

Successes were rewarded with m&m's. I called her "non-successes" "learning opportunities."

note to soon-to-potty-train-mommies - I recommend Smarties instead of m&m's. I never knew that they could be so messy!



As an update: I am so proud of how great Carly is doing. She has mastered the home potty, the public potty AND the airplane potty. However, she does still have the occasional  "learning opportunity" at school, but we are seeing progress there, so I know that it is just a matter of time before she is 100% "learning opportunity" free. 

We could have never mastered the public potty without this beauty-  a foldable, portable potty seat that is perfect for little bottoms on big potties.