Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Potty Training & Cloth Diapers?

I am in amazement right now as I'm writing this.  I honestly never thought this day would come -for more than one reason. 

To those of you who have potty trained a little one before, you may think this isn't a big deal.  But to us, it really is.  Ever since Charlotte was born, she has hated having a wet diaper and hated being changed.  So we decided at some point that we were going to attempt "early" potty training, at least in terms of when most people potty train these days.  We bought her a potty seat for her first birthday, then proceeded to do all the books, videos, rewards, etc... to get her to use it.  She actually did very well starting off in our opinion.  Took right to it, with the occasional meltdown of course, but that's nothing abnormal for Charlotte regarding anything.  Then I came into the third trimester of my pregnancy with Beckett.  Yeah, to say I was huge is an understatement and getting her up and down off her potty seat plus bending over to help her with her pants was just not happening.  We still did the Pullups, but just didn't "force" the issue with her.  Then the baby came and we tried to reinforce pottytime again with her, but with a newborn it was again quite the task for both her and us.  She did use the potty more often than not over the past year and at the risk of providing tmi... she's pooped in the potty almost exclusively since she was just over a year old.  Even that was worth this long attempt for us!  But now, as I'm crossing my fingers, it appears that she's got it.  A couple weeks ago, we figured we'd make the big push again and put her only in panties (as we've done a few times before) other than for naps and bedtime.  I also decided to switch over from telling her "It's pottytime!" and taking her there to letting her tell me.  She is a very independent strong-willed child, so this seemed to be a way to let her have "control" over the situation.  We had a couple very minor accidents, but we are now in day two of no accidents and her telling me every time she needs to go and holding it until she gets on the potty... including a trip in the car yesterday where almost five minutes from home she told us it was pottytime and we assumed she had already wet herself.  I am a proud mama for sure!  I'm sure there will be accidents along the way, but I am so proud of my "big girl" for learning this.  The beginning of many more independent steps for this 22 month old!

And then there's my little man Beckett... I can't get as excited about this.  Poor little guy doesn't even know what's coming, but on its way from the UPS man as I'm writing is a box full of cloth diapers and supplies.  And no, I'm not one of "those people."  Please, if you are a hardcore cloth diaperer, don't take offense to that.  But if you know me, or how high maintenance my children are, you would know that cloth diapering has seemed like an insurmountable task and waste of my precious time and sanity.  Until now.  I've mulled over this idea for quite a while now.  And a recent conversation with a friend (Thanks Melissa!) has encouraged me to see that it's definitely doable.  And what a cost saver!  In less than two months, I will have more than paid for the large stash of diapers and accessories by not using disposables, and with the ability to resell at a later date too.  So, I'm taking the plunge, with the convenient new Flip System version of cloth diapers (by the makers of BumGenius) and incredible power toilet sprayer invention.  Here goes nothing... 

Once again, never thought I'd see the day that this all would happen!

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