It seemed like she developed a phobia of going into the potty. She’s been perfectly ready for the potty for at least 6 months. She’s been able to go without a diaper without an accident for a while. As she needed to go, she would request a diaper. And if we tried to make her go into the potty instead of a diaper, she would put up the biggest stink. It involved lots of screaming, crying, resenting sitting on the potty, until she had no choice but to go on the floor!

Finally a few days ago I decided to enforce the “no diaper” policy. Basically, I wasn’t willing to give up no matter how much stink she puts up. The goal was to make her go into the potty versus the diaper or the floor. I even sweetened up the deal by promising ice cream if she goes into the potty.

First couple of times we had to force her to sit on the potty while she was peeing. It came to the point where she would cry, scream and shake from trying to hold it in. But eventually, she just had to let it loose. There was quite a bit of spillage, but some of it made into the potty. After much praising she got her ice cream.

Now she seems to enjoy peeing into the potty. She gets really excited when she does, she runs around clapping and proudly showing everybody her full potty.

But our work is far from over. Our next step is to make her go #2 into the potty. The ice cream deal didn’t seem to work tonight. We’ll see what happens tomorrow!

Elyana is definitely progressing in the right direction, though going into the potty hasn’t happened yet. She likes spending her time mostly without any underpants or in her regular underwear. She progressed to having no accidents. Instead, she tells me, she needs to go pi-pi, when she’s not wearing a diaper. She actually goes and gets the diaper from her room, once I tell her to bring it to me.  She then lays down, and I put the diaper on her.

This morning, she insisted she didn’t want to wear the diaper, when we were ready to go out the door. But she agreed on the underwear, and that’s what she wore. We went to the library for the toddler story time and then to the playground. I kept asking her, whether she would like to wear a diaper throughout our outing, and the answer was ‘no’. She had no accidents and once we got home, she requested a diaper.

I think our next step is going to be to sit on the potty as she requests the diaper. I will let you know how successful we are with that idea.

Till then, happy potty training!!