DO YOU HAVE TO GO POTTY?

I ask this so many times a day and the answer is usually, "Uhhhh, no." This is the response regardless of whether or not she has to pee.

Two weeks ago we started potty training bootcamp. Lauren has showed a willingness to use the toilet since shortly after she turned two but she didn't have the speech available to be able to communicate with me her desire to use it or not. Because of the speech concerns and Elyse's imminent arrival, we decided to wait on potty training until a few months after Elyse was born. When Elyse came along, we definitely did see more resistance to using the potty, so I'm glad that we didn't try to push for training any earlier than we did.

So, on that dreaded Thursday, even though I could think of a million excuses to put off potty training yet again, I pulled out Cinderella underwear and let Lauren traipse around the house in her "Cinderellas" and her shirt. Within hours, this was what my shirt looked like:

A few days later, Lauren was doing pretty well. We made it through grocery shopping with no accidents, to Target once, on car rides and out for breakfast. She was still having an accident a day but most of the time she was using the toilet.

When she went to daycare for the first time after a few days at home, Ms K commented that she never tells her when she needs to use the toilet or looks like she needs to go. I had noticed that when we first started the training and I was wondering if Lauren would start to communicate once she understood the whole potty thing but it just wasn't happening.

While I love Lauren's medication for what it does for her heart, it is complicating one important part of potty training. Lauren has no sense of having to go to the toilet. She never says she has to go or holds herself because the medication has caused her to drink and pee more than she should and, over a long period, that takes away the feeling of having to pee (because you're pretty much always doing it). Soon she will be taken off of this medication but until then I will just have to be extra aware of taking her to the toilet based on time and the amount of liquid she has taken in. It is hard to have her want to go to the toilet because she never feels like she should be going there, but that's what candy is for. Lauren's love for Hershey's Cookies and Cream chocolate is going to be her potty training weakness. For now, I will keep her out of diapers as much as possible, but this, like many other things with her, is something that we may have to take more slowly than had planned to do. All in all, a small sacrifice to make.