Maine Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
**Kimberly**
If I remember right, Helen didn't potty train until very late. Can you tell me a little about your experience and what finally worked for you? We're struggling...still.
Re: **Kimberly**
You know how everyone says you need to wait until the child is ready? Well, that turned out to be true for me, too.
We tried regular potty time and M&Ms and encouragement and potty stories and cloth training pants and pull-ups and DD didn't care, she didn't want to stop using diapers (or peeing in the pull-ups). I remember thinking (at about age 3) that the cloth training pants would surely be the answer, since she'd feel wet. Nope, she just walked around in wet pants, never saying a thing.
I started to panic at the beginning of August last year because she needed to be mostly potty trained to start preschool in September. Helen was 3 months past her 3rd birthday. I told her that it was time for her to start wearing panties and that she'd need to keep them dry. The first couple of days she had a couple of major accidents at home, but after that she was basically trained. Apparently she finally felt motivated to do it. I kept up the M&M jar (one M&M for pee, three for poop) until the jar was empty, then explained that she was now good enough at peeing, we would now only use the treats for poop.
Helen didn't fully poop train until February this year, so age 3 years 9 months. Even after she day trained for pee, she wasn't staying dry during naps or overnight so I'd give her a pull-up for naps and a night diaper overnight, and she almost always pooped in the pull-up or diaper.
The initial incentive for poop, 3 M&Ms, wasn't making a difference. We tried adding a sticker chart for poop last fall...5 times on the toilet and she would get a toy she wanted. She filled up the sticker chart, got her toy, and went back to pooping in the diapers. Fail.
I tried another sticker chart after Christmas. She needed 10 stickers to get a princess play tent. She earned one sticker for poop on the toilet, but lost one sticker for poop in a diaper. She'd go on a streak and earn a bunch of stickers, and then revert and lose a bunch of stickers. We had gotten up to 8 or 9 stickers when she totally stopped using the toilet and the chart went back down to zero. That's when I gave up and threw away the chart. She taught me!
I did still keep the candy jar...I had run out of M&Ms and switched to mini Reese's peanut butter cups; she got one peanut butter cup after each toilet poop. Two or three weeks after I ditched the sticker chart, Helen started to earn a lot more peanut butter cups. One day, as she's munching on her peanut butter cup, she declared that when the candy jar was empty, she would get her princess tent. There had been no mention of the tent since the sticker chart went into the trash, but that seemed like a reasonable request. Sure enough, pretty soon we had retired the candy jar and put up a princess tent in the living room.
Helen still doesn't stay dry overnight so she wears a night pull-up. I honestly don't know if she's wetting overnight or if she wakes up in the morning and doesn't feel like walking to the bathroom, but after the experience with all our other potty training attempts, I'm willing to just "go with the flow" for now and not press the issue.