One of my most favorite things about being a mommy is that at the moment, Olivia believes that my kisses can heal anything. Take today for example, Ryan and I took Olivia swimming at a friends house, as she was exiting the pool area, she fell off of a small rise in the concrete and scraped her knee. Ryan went to get her up off the ground and she cried, "Oh no! I need a band aid!" After applying the band aid, while still whimpering, she said, "Mommy, kiss it and make the ouchie better." I bent down, and kissed her band aid and she said, "tank you mommy, you make it all better." I know it is a little silly but it makes my heart melt that she needs me in that way. She is growing up so fast and is officially no longer a baby anymore. My 2 year old daughter is officially potty trained!
I have had people ask me about how we went about potty training. We didn't have any fancy tricks, I promise. We introduced potty training to Olivia when she was about 18 months old. We didn't push it on her, but just wanted her to get comfortable with using the potty. We did buy her a toilet insert in case the introduction went well and she wanted to continue using it and big girl pullups for easy access. Pullups were not a good choice for us. Olivia has never had an allergy to diapers, but for some reason, pullups seemed to bother her waste line. I believe it was because the smallest size we could get was a 2T, when her waste line at 18months was still fitting in 12month pants. We immediately switched back to diapers. It went well for the first couple of weeks, and then we got busy with life and kind of dropped the subject. As Olivia's birthday was fast approaching, one day at work, a coworker brought her baby cousin or niece (I can't remember) into work for a quick visit. The little girl was wearing underwear and was younger than Olivia. I couldn't believe it, and at that point I decided it was time to hit potty training hard! I did some research online and stumbled onto an article about going straight from diapers to underwear. I can't remember what the article was called or I would post a link for it on here. The article said that sometimes it was best to just put a child into underwear and take them to the potty every 30-60min, but to also let them have a few accidents so they can understand why they should not potty in their underwear. I talked it over with Ryan, and that weekend, we went to purchase Olivia her first set of big girl underwear. She was so excited because she got to pick them out. I put them on her that weekend, and she did great! We also purchased an elmo potty chair because even with a step stool, Olivia was not quite tall enough to get onto the potty without one of us lifting her. We did have quite a few accidents, but that following Monday, I sent her to her aunts house in underwear and she only had one accident. Seriously from that point on, Olivia wants to go potty on the big potty and not in her underwear. Seriously, she will scream at us in the car that she has to go potty, even when she has a diaper on because she hates having accidents. We just recently have even taken her in the car to Fair View Heights and no accidents! We do make a stop about half way there to go potty just in case, but still, we have yet to have an accident in the car! Now the only time that she wears a diaper is nap time, overnight sleeping time, or if we are in the car and know we aren't going to be able to stop for a break. I couldn't be happier that we no longer have to buy mass amounts of diapers, but i am a bit sad that my baby isn't a baby anymore. So my advice to anyone looking for potty training tips is: PUT YOUR CHILD IN UNDERWEAR, IT WORKS!
And speaking of my growing up, Olivia has no fear of the pool which is a good and bad thing. I love that she likes to swim, but she has no idea that she will just sink to the bottom if she jumps in. She knows she has to wear floaties, and be in a ring, or with mommy or daddy holding her, but she likes to jump off the side of the pool into our arms. I like letting her do this because 1. it is fun, and 2. it wears her out, but I am afraid that she isn't going to understand that we have to be there to catch her. The same goes for the diving board. She LOVES to jump off the diving board into my hands. I get it...the thrill of jumping off the board is exciting for her, but again, she just leaps with no fear what so ever and again, I am afraid that if I looked away for one second, she would just jump right in. We only recently allowed her to go under the water for the first time. She absolutely does not understand the concept of holding your breath. I can get her to do it for about one second, but then she smiles and laughs. The previous time I took her swimming, I dunked her three times. All three times, she came back up choking on water. This time, I only dunked her twice. The first time she choked just a little bit and the second time not at all. She may be starting to "get it" but I am definitely not ready to just let her go. I'm glad she had fun today though and I am glad that Ryan decided to take today off of work to spend the day with us since he will be gone, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the Grand in Sparta.
No comments:
Post a Comment