Potty training

When Brynlee was 2 1/2 (summer of 2013), I planned to start potty training her.  It seemed a reasonable age to do that.  I tried charts and bribes and encouragement and she picked out princess panties.  We had 2 Elmo potties and a princess potty.  All to no avail.  She was not ready at all.  Even though I was frustrated and annoyed, it wasn't worth trying any longer because she was not interested.  And Brynlee is so strong willed that there was no point.  At the end of 2013, beginning of 2013 (Brynlee was 3 by then), John got frustrated and took away all of her princess stuff, including movies and dress ups, plus most of her toys that she played with.  She still didn't care.  Her answer for when she would go to the potty was always "tomorrow".  This went on for a month or 2.  I got tired of tripping over the stuff in the garage and it was not working either, so she got it back.  The truth is, she was a much better kid without all the toys anyway (and the house stayed a little cleaner).

Then one day in mid-February, I asked if she wanted to sit on the princess potty.  I was shocked when she said yes.  She sat on it a couple of times the next few days, then she actually went potty on it!  I couldn't believe my eyes!  She was so excited about it too!  It didn't take long for her to want to sit on it all the time and go potty most of the time.  The awesome thing was, we didn't have to push her to do anything, she was doing it all herself.  By this time, I had resigned myself to knowing I would have 2 kids in diapers at the same time (even though they would be nearly 3 1/2 years apart) and joked that the new baby would be potty trained before Brynlee.  I really wasn't pushing for her to be potty trained right before the baby came because I figured she would regress back to diapers anyway, which is normal for toddlers.  I figured I would think about potty training again at the end of the summer.

Within 2 weeks or so of the first time sitting on the potty without being forced, she was fully trained during the day.  She only had 2 accidents the whole time (and 1 was our fault because she was not ready to be in panties yet).  She was not interested in the baby potty's anymore, so we put those away.  She goes in the bathroom by herself and usually doesn't need any help at all.  Sometimes I would be upstairs and she would be on the main level and I would hear the toilet flush and be confused because I couldn't figure out who else was in the house!  It took me a little while to remember that Brynlee was doing it all by herself!  We just need to work on not using tons of toilet paper and tons of soap.  She loves flushing the toilet.  She is not potty trained at night, but I am completely fine with that.  I actually have no desire to put in her panties at night because if she had to use the bathroom at night, that would require help from us (because she can't open her bedroom door), and with being 8-9 months pregnant I am already up several times a night myself, so the last thing I want is to be up a few more times.

For a long time I was really embarrassed that she was not potty trained, especially when kids 6-9 months younger than her were potty trained.  It's crazy that she was in Sunbeams at church not potty trained (the only one in her class of course), and there were kids in nursery that were potty trained.
But I have heard so many horror stories about how hard it is to potty train kids, that now I am glad we waited.  It required almost no effort on our part when she was ready to do it herself.  So note to future self- wait until the kid is ready and wants to do it!  Don't push them if they are not willing!