Changes

The last four months have held a lot of changes for us.  The two biggest changes are - Gwen is now pacifier free and completely potty trained! We are so proud of our big girl.  Both things happened rather quickly.

Two days before Christmas, Gwen announces she needs to give all her pacis to Santa.  Joe and I were completely in shock.  We thought for sure she would be taking them to college with her :) We went shopping and bought her a little treasure box to put them in and then on Christmas Eve we left them on the counter with a letter to Santa.  Santa was to give all Gwen's pacis to other little children who needed them.  On Christmas morning, in place of the pacis, there were all kinds of big girl presents - nail polish and lip gloss as well as all kinds of princess items. As of that moment we have been pacifier free!

The second big, big change is that Gwen is completely potty trained!  I do owe some of this to my mom.  Gwen spent the last weekend in January at my parent's house and my mom got Gwen to try and use the potty.  I had been trying since her second birthday, the January before, but to no avail.  I was hoping this was the start and she would be potty trained by the time we went on vacation the second week of April.

So on February 1 Gwen and I started potty training full force.  It was definitely frustrating the few days, for both of us, but we made it!  I moved her little potty into the living and set an egg timer for ever 15 minutes. She would hear the timer go off and sit on the potty. We did this for about a week. Next step was just urging her to try every 30 minutes.  We were doing really well.  The other key was to have her wear her big girl undies.  If I put a pull up on her, she would just wet the pull up. We also used dum-dum suckers for her rewards.  I know some people use m&m's, but Gwen doesn't like chocolate. A side note too, Gwen had been waking up dry in the morning for months, so night wetting thankfully has not been an issue.

Week three we moved the potty back into the bathroom and she was doing very well with that. We were still having a few accidents here and there, but on the whole she was doing well, even with pooping on the potty!

We made a deal with her, when she was having no more accidents, she could get a hermit crab when we got back from vacation!

Two months after we started, we are completely potty trained and we have two new additions - Nick and Sally the hermit crabs!

Sally

Very Happy Big Girl!

My baby is now a big girl.  This fall she starts preschool. I am not going to think about that today, though!  Today is suppose to be beautiful. Time to get outside and play.

Have a great rest of your day!

Nikki