Potty “Training”

So, A has reached her third birthday. We’ve made it that far! ;-) j/k And we’re several months past the new baby’s arrival, so I’m thinkin’, “Ummm…time to crank the potty thing into a higher gear”. The potty has been an informal member of our house since A was 15 or so months old. Very informal, cool, whatever, lets be friends, sit on it to read, clothed/unclothed, we’re cool. She’s occasionally shown mild interest but nothing beyond it being any more than a toy. We’ve gotten the cool Elmo Panties from Target. They are oh-so-cool, but I think A considers them a ‘big girl diaper’. Anytime she wears them, she wets or poops in them. Even though we just got a ‘catch’ earlier.
I’m desperate. Well, not really desperate, but I’d like to nudge this process along a bit. So, even though I didn’t really want to, I finally broke down, got some m&m’s when Publix had them on sale: BOGO, and BRIBED. “A! You can have an M&M if you put tinkle in the potty!” I highly encourage her to drink a whole cup of non-watered-down juice just to make sure this is all possible. Plop her in front of the TV, on the potty, sans-diaper, and hope. Success!
Fast forward one week to her 3 year well visit with the pediatrician and my thought that bribery should NOT be the way, is confirmed by our ped. Her recommendation, since A has NO interest so far, is to give her a choice every morning of panties or a diaper. (This gives her a choice, and the power. Scary, huh?) If/when she has an accident, say, “That’s ok, you’re not ready yet. We’ll try again tomorrow.”, and put her in a diaper for the rest of the day. Sounds good enough. Simple enough. No power struggles. Great. We get home. Next morning, she chooses panties. Great. A bit later, and accident. I go through the prescribed phrase, but she insists on continuing to wear panties. Ok. Panties. A little later, another accident. OK. The girl is obviously thinking that these cool Elmo panties are just another diaper. Not cool. So we put away the panties for awhile while mom regroups. I then decide that the new “choice” will be a diaper, or “nothing, so you can practice using the potty”.
This approach has seemed the best so far, for A. I’m finishing typing this on a Monday afternoon. This is our third day of successful potty catches and no accidents; day 1 & 2 being Thursday and Friday of last week. (As long as I’m comfortable with A running around naked all day!) This weekend just didn’t work since daddy was home and our routine was a little off. We’ll get there eventually though. I’ve given in on not using M&M’s for rewards, I’m just not bribing with them or mentioning them beforehand. Since I started out with those as a bribe, she remembers that, (smart cookie!), and once she has placed her contents in the potty her next words are “I wanna M-eh-N!”. Oh well, we’ll roll with it.
The best part of this laid back approach? I’m not continually enforcing ‘potty-sits’, no power struggles, no stressing about it, and the “victory” is hers to claim. ☺
We’re not there yet though. Not even close. I’m sure there’ll be more bumps along the way, but so far, I’m pretty satisfied with the no-pressure approach.
My initial thoughts going forward, once she masters the potty at home while naked is to next add panties, then the rest of her clothes. After that, we’ll take a few practice runs outside the house to my grandparents house, or Target, or the grocery store for awhile and hopefully we’ll have success and have built confidence. From there, I’m not sure. We’ll take it one day / trip at a time. ☺