It’s been a while since I updated about Elyana’s potty training, since the last couple of posts, “The Potty Training Challenge” and “The Potty Training Challenge 2″. Basically, we didn’t have much progress since then.

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!