Potty Training: Day 1!

Today was our first day using the big-girl potty! This is all TMI, so if you don't want to read about potty training, click away. Anyway, it's actually going fairly well. I went into it with absolutely no expectations, so I think she's doing pretty well. This morning started off with lots of Pedialyte, no bottoms, and paper towels. She went (on the floor) about every 5 minutes for the first 30-45 minutes, but I just kept picking her up and putting her on the potty whenever she'd start, plus putting her on every 15-20 minutes for scheduled potty breaks and marshmallows when she got it in. Then she started getting startled every time she'd start to pee in the potty, but right before nap time, she had a bit of a breakthrough and went a lot in the potty. By bedtime, she still wasn't getting herself to the potty in time, but there was much less volume in the accidents and she didn't seem as startled when she'd go in the potty. And actually, I put her on the potty while she was waiting for her bath and she went right in there, no accident at all.

I'm giving it the full three days - there's a 3 day potty training method that basically says you should just let the kid go naked to learn wetness and cut diapers cold-turkey and that that will work over the course of 3 days. I definitely don't anticipate Ellie being potty trained in 3 days, but I would love to see her on her way and we'll just keep it up from there. My ultimate goal is to have her completely done by mid-June, which would be about 3 months before baby gets here (time to make sure the potty habit is well learned). And mid-June is only 4 months away. So we'll do the 3 days and make the judgement call on Saturday night - either she's picking it up and we'll keep on the potty training path, or she's not and we'll back off for another month. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I'm also starting to keep an eye out for stuff for her big girl room - I have my eye on an Ikea adjustable bed that seems to come up on Craiglist every once in a while, plus we'll need a video monitor and some furniture and new bedding and stuff. First things first, we'll have to borrow some friends to move all the furniture out of the office (and we're going to have to figure out what we're doing with said furniture). There's a huge consignment sale that comes twice a year in the area and I'm thinking about consigning some of Ellie's clothes. It'd be so helpful if I knew beforehand whether this baby will be a boy or girl, but I'll only be 16 weeks, so unless we happen to get a detailed ultrasound sometime that week, it isn't likely.