When we began potty training less than two weeks ago, posts written by parents in the midst of potty training their toddler were a life-saver. So, I decided to share our experience. You can find a detailed post about Day 1 of our attempt at 3-Day Potty Training here, including links to my favorite posts written by other parents.
In this post, you’ll find an overview of days 2 and 3. I plan to share days 4 and beyond soon to answer questions like “What happens when the pants are back on?” and “How long was it before you were able to go out in public again?”. Subscribe using the form on the side bar for updates when new posts go live!
If you’re in the midst of potty training, I think it’s important to remember that potty training experiences vary widely, even among people attempting the exact same potty training method. Some parents that I talked to experienced success on Day 1, others didn’t experience full potty training success for months. Any success should be celebrated, even if it doesn’t go exactly according to plan. You, and your little one, have got this!
3-Day Potty Training- Day 2
7:30 I get G up for the day. She wore a pull-up overnight, so we say goodbye to it and I remind her to use the potty when she needs to go. G is a little fussy but heads off to eat breakfast. The potty chair comes with us.
8:10 We color together and watch Elmo’s Potty Time on YouTube. G loves Elmo, so I was excited to find the video after she was in bed last night.
8:30 G is fussy about using both her potty chair and the big potty. She only peed yesterday and I’m pretty sure she’s doing what she can to resist pooping today.
9:10 G successfully makes it to the potty in time to pee. She doesn’t seem to remember the chocolate chips from yesterday, so we celebrate with cheers and high fives.
9:35 After much protest and jumping on and off the potty, we have our first poop in the potty! I break out two chocolate chips to celebrate, and throw in a sticker too.
10:10 After saying “No!” two minutes ago when asked if she needed to go potty, G jumps up in the middle of playing and runs to the potty to pee. She asks for two chocolate chips (which in toddler speak sounds like “Chi- Two?”) but I tell her chocolate chips are now only for going poop on the potty. She runs off to play without protest.
The rest of day 2 continued in much the same way, without incident. G successfully used the potty to pee 6 more times throughout the day, sometimes with reminders, sometimes without any prompting. She asked for a chocolate chip one more time, but didn’t put up a fuss when reminded that they were no longer a reward for going pee.
Takeaways From Day 2
I was surprised, and relieved, that G took so well to phasing out the chocolate chips. During day 1, I was worried we’d be handing out chocolate chips for weeks to come. Overall, G did better than I hoped she would. I still wondered how things would go once Day 4 got here and the pants were back on. And how would she handle trips out of the house? Still, we ended the day on a good note with a normal bedtime and ready to tackle day 3 in the morning!
3-Day Potty Training- Day 3
7:30 Wake up time! G says “Bye-bye!” to her pull-up and heads off to breakfast.
7:50 G runs to the potty to go pee with no reminders, and no chocolate chip!
7:55 G goes poop on the potty, this time with no fuss at all.
For the rest of the day, G continued to make her way to the potty whenever she needed to go. I continued to offer her watered down juice throughout the day to encourage her to go. She stuck mostly to her potty chair, which traveled to each room with us, but used the big potty once. No protests, and no chocolate chips!
Takeaways From Day 3
I ended the day thankful for how much progress she’d made, but a bit apprehensive of what would happen once we put bottoms on in the morning. I also wondered how long the potty chair would need to go everywhere with us.
Products we Used:
Here are the products we used while potty training. The Summer Infant potty chair was a huge help, and I love that it was only $10 on Amazon! We used the microfiber wipes for cleaning up accidents, but fortunately we didn’t have much use for them after day one. I already had a stash to use with our Swiffer as reusable cleaning cloths.
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