Potty Princess

Well, after nearly 5 1/2 years of buying diapers, we have a fully potty trained household! Ivy has been wearing underpants and staying dry for almost a month now. She is a proud little potty princess!!

Last I updated on this journey back here, Ivy was "poop trained" simply by default. Ivy refused to go number 2 in a diaper and had some holding stubbornness that took months to address with reinforcement and occasional enemas. Just after Christmas we decided to just put Ivy in underpants and see what happened with going number 1 in the potty too. 

After the first couple of days with a few accidents, Ivy started to understand the concept. We pulled the potty into the dining room which was more comfortable for her, gave her gummies for motivation, and a sticker chart to track her progress. After her first few days of success, she was rewarded with a giant bag of Cheddar Chex Mix just for her. 

Girlfriend is highly motivated by snacks!

The following week, there were no accidents but a few days when Ivy was resistant to sit down so Mandy discovered she would sit if she could watch cake decorating videos on Instagram. "Baking with Blondie" is making bank off of her reels I'm sure, as our single household is probably responsible for a large portion of her views in the last month. 

Lots of cheers and celebrating, pride in showing us her success, and cute character undies really sealed the deal. We haven't had to give her an enema since December. She is more confident now and I finally worked out the right ratio of fiber gummies to keep her more regular and comfortable. We discovered that her low muscle tone is also a contributing factor to her persistent constipation. TMI, but she is finally going without us forcing her to. Everyone is happier about that!

Ivy stays dry through the night but we still put her in a diaper just in case...and because I have a box and half of diapers left to use up. The other night Ivy was in her diaper and jams right before bed and told me she needed to go. She had started to pee in her diaper, stopped herself, got to the potty and finished! I'd say that's a pretty good sign she knows what to do!! So proud of this girl. This milestone is always a weird one, I'm thrilled to be done buying and changing diapers but it's a huge step in realizing the baby phase is over...only the crib remains. And there is more on that soon.

Ivy earned this pink kitty chair for completing two sticker charts.