the potty training post :updated on bottom

I don't know when it ok to actually declare a child "potty trained."

I assume when the accidents stop. But on day 1 of no accidents? week 1 of no accidents.

eh. I have no clue.

All I know is that in the middle of June, Daughter was down to only wearing a diaper when we left the house and one at night. She'd been having dry naps for a few months already.

So, after one week of dry nighttime diapers, I decided we were finished with diapers for Daughter. We went to wal-mart so she could pick out more panties. At this point she only had three pair of "Manny panties" (handy manny boys' underwear). I was pretty certain she'd pick the buzz lightyear boys briefs or the sesame street girls panties. but she shocked me by picking a large pack of pink, purple, white and orange panties of various designs. (this led Husband and I to have a very long discussion about gender identifying)

Anyway, the first night she was confused about why she wasn't wearing a diaper to bed even though I'd been telling her most of the day, she wasn't going to wear diapers anymore.

It's been close to two months now and she's only had one accident. At the very beginning on the way to the grocery store when she'd just told me five minutes before that she didn't have any teetee in her body. (one of her favorite urine related phrases)

She still has trouble putting shorts back on and she always wants to take off dresses when it's time to use the toilet. But she's doing really great.

At 18 months, we first introduced her to the little potty and she got a hershey kiss every time she used it. We didn't make a big deal about it. Just started talking about using the toilet instead of diapers and started letting her go around without a diaper sometimes. It went well. Then at about 2 she told me she needed to use the potty at Lowe's. It was the first time she ever used a regular sized toilet and after that, Daughter did not want to use her little baby bjorn potty anymore.

I really worried about how to break her of the hershey kiss treat. But that's gone well too. We just stopped offering it to her and only giving her one if she asks. And that's down to less than once a day at this point.

Yes, leaving the house is a bigger hassle. There's the "go use the potty before you get dressed" argument. There's the "I have to go use the potty," but really she just wants to go to the bathroom and wash her hands situation. There's the "I need help pulling up my pan-ties" time waster.

But it's really nice to have her in underwear.

So what about all our cloth?

At the time we had a dozen prefolds, 9 pockets with snaps and 26 pockets with velcro. too many for one little boy. seemed wasteful to me to have that many.

Cottonbabies.com (where we buy most of our cloth diapers) has a program called "Growing up in Cloth" where you can trade in your old diapers toward store credit for new diapers.

Now, most of my diapers are in such shape that I would be embarrassed to give them to a cloth diapering friend. It's true. After a year and a half and two kids, elastic needs repair, velcro needs replacing. They look shabby and very well worn. I couldn't in good faith give those to a friend.

But I can mail then to cotton babies and ask for money. I mailed in 13 bumGenius3.0 and they offered me $65. My mom offered to buy me 6 bumGenius4.0 for Son. So, subtract $65 from the price of 6 new ... my mom saves some money and Son gets some better fitting diapers and I don't have as many diapers taking up room. (I'm getting all snaps this time so hopefully when Son is potty trained I CAN pass those on to friends.) win, win, win, win.

I'm excited to order the new ones.

now before I go. A picture of Daughter walking to the bathroom. She's not about to go ... I just asked her to walk down the hall so I could take her picture.

UPDATE: February 8, 2013.

My original post was written years ago and still it's one of my most views posts.  I assume it's because parents are looking for advice, tricks, tips, SANITY when potty training their kids. I am no expert.  I am just a mom.  My Daughter was super easy and super fast to potty train. My Son ... not at all.  He would poop in the floor for awhile.  He'd pee on anything.  It was much more a test of my patience.  And really, years later that's my advice.  Patience.  Your kid is still a baby. (the definition of baby in our house is someone who doesn't wear underwear and has to get their butt wiped by mom or dad.)  Give encouragement, praise and bribes, if necessary.  but, just be patient. Chances are they won't be wearing a diaper to kindergarten.