Potty Progress

We are about 2 months into this whole potty training thing so I thought I might give an update. It has been a MAJOR roller coaster.  Based on Lucy's initial excitement and eagerness to use the potty, I assumed this process was going to be a piece of cake.  Boy was I wrong.  Oh how toddlers can change their opinion about something in a matter of seconds.

So here is where things stand currently.  On the pee front, I would say Lucy typically has 1-2 major accidents a week.  I definitely thought we would be past this, but I need to stay positive and realize that she is dry about 95% of the time, so... yay!  I guess I should say I use the term "dry" loosely.  Currently, unless I initiate taking Lucy to the potty every hour (which can usually be a bit of a fight), she only let's me know she needs to go potty once she has let a small amount out.  This irritated me at first, but I'm learning to just let it go because nothing I've done has convinced her to let me know before letting that small amount out.  I'm actually kind of impressed, because anyone who has tried to pee a little and then stop knows how hard that is to do! :)

At first I would change her clothes every time, but after going through about 5 pairs of underwear a day I've decided just to leave them on in hopes that she will not like the wet feeling and stop doing it.  Not sure if that makes me a bad mom, but I just can't keep up with the laundry.  And it really is only about a dime size amount.

All in all I am pleased with Lucy's progress, but I would not say we are officially "potty trained"... I would still say we are in training mode.

On the poop front, we have had even more struggles, but I am happy to report I think we are through those struggles (for now).  My doctor did not like the fact that Lucy was only going about every 3 days and so recommended we put Lucy on Miralax to make her a bit more regular.  We started giving her the Miralax and I'm not sure what exactly happened at that point, but things started going downhill fast.  The first day after using it, Lucy pooped her pants for the first time since starting this process - and honestly I think that freaked her out.  From my outside perspective (unfortunately I have no idea what is going on in that toddler head of hers), I think the Miralax made her stools too loose, making it too uncomfortable to poop and made her not want to go.  She went 5 days once without pooping and we ended up having to use a suppository.  After that I could see her keep trying to hold it in and she would say she didn't want to go because it hurt.  It was an awful few weeks.  I was stressed, I mean major stressed - it killed me to watch her struggle with this.  No matter what I did or said, it ultimately didn't matter - you can not make your kid poop.  Oh how the Lord likes to remind me that I am not in control.  Even if it is in weird ways.

So, after playing with lots of Miralax dosages, and making lots of calls to the doctor, and doing lots of research online, and spending lots of nights crying to Ben in frustration, we finally got it figured out.  My conclusion - the Miralax was too much for Lucy, she is an poop every 3 days kind of person, and that works for her.  I really like my doctor, and trust her, but unfortunately she was wrong in the situation and I probably should have done a better job listening to my gut.

Currently Lucy almost always poops in the potty - she's gone once in her pull-up, once in the back yard (that was fun) and just today she actually went in her pants and then moved over to finish the toilet (not sure what happened there)... but because of all the craziness we went through I am so thankful whenever she poops, wherever it ends up happening!

A funny story - one day Lucy was supposed to be napping but I could hear that she was talking in her bed.  That's not too out of the ordinary, she's been doing that a lot lately, but will stay in her room and play.  So I just left her monitor inside while I went out to water our vegetables and flowers.  After being outside for about 30 minutes I saw Lucy come up to the back glass door and start waving at me - this immediately made me crack up because she had never gotten out of her bed or come out of her room before.  When I went to go get her she declared - "I pooped mama".  My immediate thought was "great!" but I looked down and saw that she didn't have her pull-up on, so I wondered where this poop might have happened.  I asked her to show me where the poop was and she grabbed my hand and walked me over to the bathroom.  Lucy had gone poop in her little potty, then dumped it into the big potty. Yay! Much better than finding poop all over her bed.  I also found her pull-up laying in the upstairs bathroom, so I can only conclude that she knew she had to poop, got out of bed, went to the bathroom upstairs and took off her pull-up, didn't go right away, came downstairs, realized she still had to go, pooped in her little potty, dumped it in the big potty and then came outside to tell me.  Wow! I was impressed... if only ever day was that easy!

Oh yeah - and she is definitely still in a pull-up for nights and naps.  In the beginning she would have a dry pull-up after her nap a couple times a week, but lately she is wet almost every time I get her.  So I don't feel like we are anywhere close to getting rid of the pull-ups (which sucks because they are super expensive... I've actually just been putting diapers on her and calling them pull-ups because I'm way too cheap to keep using pull-ups)

Hopefully I'll have even more progress to report in 2 months! At least that's what I'm praying for!