I Think We've Reached the End

You know there are lots of "firsts" that we remember about our children, but sometimes it is hard to remember the "lasts" because you don't know it is going to be the last until it already has passed.  I remember starting to potty train Lilly when she turned 2.  I remember that it seemed like she was never going to catch on, but eventually she did and I can't remember when exactly that was.  At that time, I knew she was not ready to focus on night time potty training because she was still waking up wet almost every night.  After we were pretty solid on going to the bathroom during the day, I began to focus on the night time.  Again, it seemed like she would never catch on and I wondered if I would have one of those kids who still wet the bed when she was 7 or 8 years old (it is not uncommon).  I would take her to the bathroom before I went to bed and I would get up in the middle of the night and take her again and then again in the morning.  It was very tiresome.  *I will put in a a plug for bed pads here though because they are an awesome invention.  You stick them on top of the sheets and when your child wets the bed you can just take off the bed pad, throw it away, and put a new one on.  You don't have to change the sheets or anything else - wonderful!

The point of this post is this...I haven't taken her to the bathroom during the night in a few weeks now and she has been waking up dry with no accidents.  I don't remember exactly when it occurred but I think we have finally reached the end of all potty training phases. :)  So, I guess..."soon she won't need a Mommy anymore."

Underwear Tantrum

My daughter has been daytime potty trained for quite a while now, but nighttime is a whole other story.  I have attempted to tackle this battle quite a few times - realizing that her body just wasn't physically ready to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. 

Well, recently, we've decided to tackle the "battle" again.  I saw an advertisement for those bed pads that you can put down so you don't have to change the whole bed sheet every time there is an accident.  This was exciting for me because that was mostly the reason I hadn't tried putting her in panties to sleep yet - changing the sheets in the middle of the night after each accident did not sound fun to me.  I went to one store to find the pads and could not find them anywhere.  Come to find out they do not carry them, so they sent me to the health section for elderly people where they had bed pads.  I bought them, and then later found the kid version at a grocery store.  I decided to try out both and compare. My opinion, I have decided that the kid version with the sticky part on the back that keeps it in place is much, much better. 

First night - We lay the bed pad down, she gets dressed for bed, she puts her underwear on instead of pull-ups.  I take her to the bed 3 times throughout the night.  She is dry each time, but the third time I take her she complains that she doesn't want to get up to go potty anymore. In the morning, she is a tad wet but my husband and I make a big deal of how great she did. 

Second night - She decides she doesn't want to wear the panties to bed, she doesn't want to "grow up", she doesn't want to get up in the middle of the night to go potty because she is too sleepy.  She just wants to go back to wearing her pull-ups.  It is an all out fight to get her to put them on.  In my head, I debate whether it is worth all this...I tell her that we at least need to stick it out for a week and see how she does.  Finally, we get her to put them on and she does fantastic.  She goes potty each time I take her through the night and is dry all the way through until morning. 

We're on night 3 as I type this and I am praying that she'll continue to do well and that her body will eventually get used to waking up and going potty on her own.