The Motivator!

Last week Lily and I were home for the day I decided that we were going to start to nail down this whole potty thing.  So we spent the morning talking about peeing in the potty, poo poo in the potty, how all of Lily's friends go pee pee on the potty like big kids.  We sat on the potty MANY times throughout the morning each time spending at least 20 minutes reading on the potty.  I have  stickers, I have special potty books, I have "surprises."  The first time she got off the potty walked 10 feet and peed on the floor.  Everything says to have them clean it up.....haha like that is a learning lesson for my child- she LIKES to clean up.  So immediately she runs over the the wash clothes and cleans up the mess, saying " mess, mess."  So then an hour later I bribe her with more things.....we sit on the potty 20 minutes...she never goes and she gets off the potty.  I immediately put a diaper on her because I learned my lesson the first time and 2 minutes later she comes up to me and points to her diaper and says "poo poo."  So of course she peed in her diaper right after we sat on the potty.  So I get serious. Lily does not get very many treats, maybe a cookie every 2-3 weeks, so I pull out all the stops and say, " Lily if you go pee pee in the potty mommy will give you a chocolate chip."  And with that my child squeals, does a double fist pump and runs to the potty.  I sit her on the potty and she pees immediately.  She even pooped that night on the potty.  So well knowing she was going to daycare the next day and we would lose a little ground I did what any reasonable parent would do I called her Mimi.  We went to Gaylord for the weekend and I knew she would want to show off for Chuck and Sheila, so like the great grandparents they are Sheila had stickers galore for Lily and she did show off by peeing in the potty a few times.   It was not consistent but it is a start.

So today I am home again and after talking to many moms about their solutions I decided to get a potty that sits on the ground and lots of toys that she picked out as a reward.  She of course picked out the most expensive Baby Bejorn Potty ( I understand why it looked the most comfortable) and then she proceeded to carry it around target for 75% of the trip.  When we got home I set the toys on the table so she could see them and asked her if she needed to go pee on the potty.  If she did she could pick one of the toys to play with.  She did not go running to the potty this time, instead after lunch she gave me the cue that she needed to go, I told her about the toys again and she agreed.  So as a reward she picked out the princess panties.  I am in no way ready to get rid of the diapers so we put them over her pants and she loved it.