Potty Training - Preparing

This topic will be covered over a few posts. I think it makes the most sense that way. This one is about everything I did to prepare for the "BIG DAY".

Special Notes: In these posts I'm focusing on Emily's training, she was 2 years and 7 months old when we started and within 4 days she was 100% potty trained including naps and nighttime! Abby began her potty training today and I will do a whole series of posts about that at a later time.

I searched a ton online about potty training and read a bunch of blogs. The one that made the most sense to me was this one. She said she trained all 4 of her kiddos this way in 1 day each! The key was putting the child on the potty every 15 minutes. To be honest I tried this 2 different times with Emily but I wasn't really into it...I kind of half-*** it. But this time would be different!! I'll go more into my actual method in a later post.

Before the BIG DAY, Grandma and I took the girls out shopping. We went to a few different stores to find Emily her new potty. (The previous 2 times I had used the insert that goes on the big potty, but my OB made a great point, Emily can't get on the big potty by herself and who wants their little legs dangling all over when on the potty?!)  Emily first wanted the loud, flashing light potty that she could make go on with the flushing on the fake handle. I knew that would be a mistake...she would do that all day long and not be doing her business.

Instead she decided on this pink, princess one.



I like this one, when she goes it plays music...so no guessing!

The other item on my list was training pants. Emily picked out some real underwear (Toy Story, Princesses, and Pixar Characters) and I grabbed a few sets of training pants that provided some extra padding.

And lastly, the rewards. I decided to provide a bag of goodies (toys, stickers, coloring books, books, etc). Pretty much things found in the $1 section of Target and a couple higher price items for the times she first went #2. The smaller rewards went into the bags and the "larger" items were kept out of sight...I tied them with pretty ribbon to really jazz them up.

Whew....we were ready to go home and get ready for the BIG DAY.

Later that night after the girls went to bed I set up the bathroom for them. Providing labels on the goody bags and their potties!

Seeing that Emily and I would be spending LOTS of time in the bathroom I also found some adorable bins at Target and filled them with books both reading and coloring, flash cards and crayons.

Next post....Day 1 of Potty Training.