Strange Potty

Today was a strange potty day. I had to force her onto the potty when we got up by offering her a mini cookie I got yesterday at the mall with my sister from Mrs. Field's (they had a special. 20 mini cookies for $6.) I got 6 white chocolate macadamia [my favorite, Mmm], 4 milk chocolate chip, 2 oatmeal raisin [which I fobbed off on Unka Rop,] 2 peanut butter and 6 M&M [for the kids.] Just to spite me, instead of wanting the M&M ones, Little Z wanted white chocolate macadamia, and Tually wanted milk chocolate chip. Traitors.
Anyway, yesterday my sister caught her starting to poop in her diaper, so I plopped her onto the potty, and Tually sat in the bathroom walking with her and amusing her and she finished pooping on the potty! Wahoo! So today, now that we're home again, I let her choose a special poopy present. She chose a Littlest Pet Shop set with a bajillion little accessories and 3 pets. We played with that for a while, and then she wanted to go back into the computer room. I chose a pair of random Spongebob "Squarepanties" underpants for her to tool around the house in, which prompted her to ask to watch some "Spunchbop." [For the record, the Nick Jr panty pack (with Dora, Blue's Clues, Wonder Pets and Sponebob) was the only one she chose. I was pimping the Disney Princess or Dora pack, but she wanted the one with "Bob," despite never having see the show at that point. She also chose "Bob" band-aids.]
At some point, while playing a computer game, she said her poop was coming out, so we sat her on the potty, but she quickly gave up. She asked to sit on the potty again later, again with no results. But I was thrilled that she was telling me that she thought she needed to go, and then that she wanted to use the potty at all! Later she scarpered off, and I heard her breathing funny in the hallway, like when she has gas. Plus a funny smell, so I went to investigate. I was greeted with "No! You go away! Don't look at me!" so I knew she was pooping! I whisked her off to the toilet, dumping the contents of her panties onto the floor into the toilet, and had her sit to finish. Super unusual, since she rarely poops two days in a row. Usually it's every other day. (Running off to poop, and demanding that I go away until she's done is totally normal for us. Nutjob.)

It's My Potty And I'll Cry If I Want To!

Potty training has hit yet another setback.
We started out rewarding her just for sitting on the potty. I had a jar of super-cheap toys and trinkets (plastic animals, clearance jewelry, etc) that I wrapped individually, so she could open each one. She started taking that for granted, and would just rifle though the jar, opening and discarding items, never satisfied. But it got her comfortable with the potty. Then we switched to only rewarding results, rather than attempts. For a potty success, she would earn a much awesomer toy, like something from the Dollar store, until she got bored with those, and then we upgraded to Littlest Pet Shop pets. They're spendier, at around $2.50 each, but she loves them and wants to earn them, so we were seeing many more potty successes, and even a few times she told us when she needed to go. And for poo, we got big presents. Playsets. Like a Little Pet Shop House, or a Strawberry Shortcake with a bajillion little bits to play with. That kind of thing. I had just switched to a star chart (5 pees or  poo = a present,) since she was doing so well, she was getting several potty presents a day, so I wanted to teach her to wait and the value of slowly earning a goal. But that was when the potty use dropped to nil.

Lately, she's running away when it's time to change her diaper (I know, I know. Most kids do that. She's always been fairly cooperative though.) And refusing to even sit on the potty. When I asked her why she didn't want to sit on the potty anymore, she said, "Because Mommy and Daddy said I don't have to sit on the potty." Hrm. True. We've been fairly casual and non-stressy about the whole thing, and we've let her know it's her choice whether she wants to use the potty... but maybe it's time to ramp it up a bit! She's certainly physically capable of using the potty! Early on she'd 'hold it in' until she got off the potty and got her diaper on. Stinker. She has a hard time pulling down her pants and pull-ups, so I've switched to undies-only at home, since she can pull those down by herself. She still needs help pulling everything back on, especially as she hates having her stuff pooled at her ankles, so she kicks it all off.
But just undies isn't enough. She's perfectly happy peeing all over herself (and the chairs. And the floor. etc) all day long. So she wears her panties and I have to nag remind her, and then cajole and/or bribe her to sit on the potty at regular intervals. I've cut off all sweets, and now she only gets a treat while sitting on the potty (or after, if that's her choice.) Sometimes she wants to hold some fragile little knickknack of mine, so I let her, but only while she's on the potty. That was a fairly good incentive when we first put the Christmas tree up, and she wanted to hold my fragile ornaments.
Letting her hold my breakables serves several purposes, in addition to incentivizing her potty use. I teach her to be gentle and respectful of fragile things. I teach her that I trust that she can be gentle with fragile things. And I teach her that if she asks, she can hold them, under certain conditions, so she doesn't try sneaking them on her own or climbing up in some precarious way to get at them. She trusts me too, and so knows she can come to me and I'll help her. And unless you plan on packing away everything you value, it's best to teach them how to handle stuff properly, and how to best respect your things, rather than yell at them after they've knocked down the curio cabinet trying to climb up it to play with something on the top!

My plan now is to keep panties on, and put diapers on over for when we have to go out, since I don't relish washing the car seat cover every day, nor am I looking forward to my sister giving me the stinkeye over mystery puddles on her couch! That way she feels the wetness and discomfort, but I have the diaper to catch the mess.
I'm also switching to a more hard-line approach that we've used before. No more "do you need to use the potty?" Now its "Okay! Potty time! What show do you want to watch on the potty?" [We have training potties in the computer and TV rooms, since she doesn't usually like to use the "big potty" seat adapter in the bathroom.] Sometimes she'll ask to hold the potty present she's chosen. [It's cheaper to buy the Littlest Pet Shops in multi-packs, and they had super sales on them around Christmas, so we stocked up! So she sees a whole bunch at once, and decides which one she wants now, and keeps in mind which one she'll want next!] If I think she'll probably have a potty success and earn her toy, I let her hold it. If I'm fairly sure nothing's gonna happen, I let her chose a small candy or fruit snacks. That way I don't have to wrench the toy away from her after!
She's still nowhere near pooping on the potty consistently. For a while, she'd go days with a dry diaper, but that was summer, and it was hot, and I'm fairly sure the dehydration factor plus the potty use was what kept her dry. But we still had a lot more potty use then! But only a few poops, and all but one of them was me catching her at the beginning of a poop and making her sit on the potty to finish. For the other one, she was sitting on the potty watching her shows and didn't want to get off, and happened to poo when she wasn't paying attention!

Hopefully we'll be able to get back on track, get back to the potty chart, then increase the number of stars required, then not need it at all. But so far, for her, having her older cousins and next-door-neighbor friend use the potty isn't an incentive. Telling her about the gym and ballet classes she can't go to until she's potty trained haven't been an incentive. Not even letting her pick out fancy panties has motivated her. [In fact, she outright refused to choose panties all but one of the times I took her. But she's starting to get into them now. She's loving the Lady and the Tramp ones my sister got her for Christmas, and the fairy princess ones I found on clearance from Carter's.] So far the best I can do is just get her to sit on the potty by threatening to give her potty present to her cousin or the girl next door because they use the potty.

As it stands, the only time she voluntarily asks for the potty is either a) out in public near scuzzy bathrooms where I don't even want to touch the door, much less lean on the floor to hold her on the seat. Or b) between 1 and 6am. My husband was disgusted at me the first time she pulled this little stunt at 3am, and I told her to just pee in her diaper and go back to sleep. Now she'll wake me up with "I needa yousa podty an I don' wan the pee to go in my dyper!" Smartass. On the plus side, she's never woken me up for a false alarm! On the minus side, sometimes it means she's up for good! (Until 10am, when we're headed off to whatever activity had been planned for that day, and she falls asleep!)

My Girl Wants To Potty All The Time

So far, potty training has been a breeze. I don't really bother with it, and she gets to pee in her diaper(s) all day. Win-win.
I'm not being entirely honest. We've been actively potty training since she turned around 18 months. It's just been picking up more lately. But I have a low-key approach. I ask if she needs/wants to sit on the potty and then respect her decision. At my sister's house, it's almost always a 'yes,' especially once my niece pipes in that SHE needs to use the potty FIRST. The potty successes have been few and far between, until recently.
I've known for a while that she's had the muscle control, since from the very start she'd hold her pee in until she got off the potty and had her diaper back on. Sometimes, she'd literally be holding it in. But we've been ultra casual. No pressure. No stress. Do it and get a big hurrah; don't do it, and it's okay, we'll try again later! I had a bucket of 'potty presents' - little dollar store trinkets, individually gift-wrapped, and she could choose one just for sitting on the potty. Then she'd at least sit long enough to un-wrap it! I'd gotten some packs of necklaces, bracelets and rings at Claire's clearance when they had 10/$10, so I got almost 30 pieces of jewelry for her. And the Dollar Tree had packs of plastic animals, mini squirt toy animals, and such for $1/packet as well. So we had quite a stash.
Her first present opened was an Elmo stamp, from JoAnn's or Michael's dollar section (although I've since seen them at Target as well.) She loved it, but it made all future presents pale in comparison. So for a while, I'd just set her up at her little potty with some paper and her Elmo stamper on her stool and let her sit and play. We had a few potty successes. But she'd never pee while I was in the room. Either she just had to sit long enough for it to happen, or she'd hold it until I left (I got bored.) After months of this, and rejected potty presents (she liked opening them though, so I'd let her open a few each time and toss them back in, then re-wrap them!) I moved the potty into the computer room, where she could watch her shows.
Potty training took off! We went quickly from sitting long enough so that pee eventually fell out; to her grabbing her potty present bucket and asking to sit on the potty, with pee following shortly thereafter! We have good days, and stints where several days go by with no potty successes (or even attempts!) I'm terrible at remembering to ask her, and she goes through phases where she doesn't want us to change her diaper or use the potty. But overall we're moving forward and my laziness patience has paid off! Somewhere in there we graduated to 'big' presents for potty success, and she hardly ever bothers with the potty present bucket of cheap treats for just trying. She gets anything from a Dollar Store toy to a Littlest Pet Shop animal for peeing on the potty... but it's starting to get expensive! When she hasn't used the potty in a while, we tend to ramp up the rewards, and give her something bigger, like a LPS or My Little Pony set, rather than just 1 animal or part of the set. I'm fairly sure if I banged out a sticker chart, she'd adapt well to the new rewards method. But I'm lazy forgetful.
There was a mystery pee/poo at my sister's house one visit a few months ago. Her daughter denies using the little potty, and Z had been sitting on it, but she wandered off fairly quickly and I was distracted helping my niece clean up an accident. So it's inconclusive, and I hate to count that as her first poo, since I just don't know (and suspect it was my niece, for various reasons.) And we had a little teeny tiny microscopic poo once on the downstairs potty (while cleaning the garage we found another training potty from my sister-in-law, so we put it in the TV room.) But just last week, we had, what I will call THE FIRST REAL POO! An intentional poo. She asked to use the potty, and then had a normal bowel movement. BOO-YAW! None since then, all have been in the diaper, but I'll take what I can get!
I've changed my methods a little, and we've seen more success. Instead of asking her if she needs/wants to use the potty, I ask if her body is telling her that she has pee or poo that is ready to come out. Because, hey, no one WANTS to stop what they're doing to use the potty, and she doesn't NEED to.... she can just go in her diaper! And if I know she's due for a pee (10-20 minutes after eating, 5-10 minutes after waking up, right before and right after bath, etc) I tell her that it's potty time, rather than asking her. (If you aren't going to give them a choice, don't ask.) If she adamantly refuses, I don't push it, since the objective is to have her be comfortable with the potty process, rather than view it as a dreaded task, or associate yelling or frustration with the process. And often, when she initially says she doesn't need to go, she asks to use the potty shortly after, when her body is sending her the signals, which is the ultimate goal anyway! It's not like I want to be texting her at college to remind her to go to the bathroom!