Potty Trained Ruby

My sweet Ruby Joy has hit a couple of major mile stones in her little life over this past month. I am ever so proud of her! She is so intelligent, sweet, and catches on to teaching very quickly. Like I mentioned in my last post, she now sleeps only in her "princess" bed, sharing her room with her baby sister. Ruby is 30 months old and POTTY TRAINED! I have dreaded this phase, completely nervous that I couldn't potty train a child. Well, my girl proved me wrong, and I am grateful!

This time last year I tried to be super mom and potty train her at 19 months. I knew it could be done at a young age, and I was sure I could have "that child." I tried the very strict "potty training in 3 days" type method. I was completely prepared with special juices so she would be drinking all day long. I had salty fun snacks to make her thirsty, a doll that could pee when you squeezed it, and tiny little panties. I was also about 6 1/2 months pregnant. I started the day full of vigor and excitement. After about 2 hours of this intense process, I was starting to get tired, but still kept going. Then the hours slowly creeped by and tensions began to rise - in both Ruby and me. I became so exhausted and frustrated by the end of that day, that I just bawled when Brian got home. He proceeded to find a babysitter and take me out to Mexican food for dinner. It helped a little... ;-p

Now, one year later, I finally felt it was time to try again. So Saturday July 27th I buckled down. I used a piece of thin cardboard and write "Ruby's Chart" on it. I pinned it to the wall next to the toilet, along with a couple sheets of stickers. The first 4 or so days was a lot of work on my part. That's the time I questioned if this was the right time, or if she was ready. I was reminding her about every 30 minutes to go sit on the potty. So we sat, and sat, and sat. Sometimes we had successes, sometimes we had accidents. I noticed, however, that by 1 week, she was starting to prompt herself to go. This made me wonder - could she really have it figured out?! Then by 2 weeks she was always telling me when she needed to go, and having no accidents. Then I braved the next step - let her nap with undies on. She amazed me and never had an accident at nap time! Then around week 3 I decided to go on a quick errand and let her stay in undies. I was really nervous we'd have a messy car. But, she held it until we got home! It is just AMAZING how quickly she caught on. Now we go everywhere with her just in undies (and clothes!) and she naps with no diaper or pull up. She isn't shy in other bathrooms either - which is just awesome.

Now at night time she is still in a diaper or pull up. The next big step will be to eliminate that. I am SO thrilled with where we are now, that I'm not even worried about that next step. So excited over here!
I wonder if Cora will be similar..... :)