Failed Potty Training Attempt #1

We have not been pressuring Charlotte to be potty trained. For months now, before her bath she will go to the bathroom in the "big girl potty". There have been a few times when she has come to us and let us know she needs to go potty. When she is swimming she will get out of the pool, go the the corner to poop (in her swim diaper) and won't get back in the pool until she is changed. She has yet to poop in the big girl potty. We don't pressure her and actually are not very consistent about asking her if she needs to go to the bathroom.

A friend of mine has a daughter a few months older that Charlotte. One day this past summer Elizabeth told her mom that she no longer wanted to wear her diaper. From that day on she Elizabeth has been potty trained. This included a 6 hour car ride to Vermont with no accidents.

I had also read a blog where the author's daughter (again a few months older than Charlotte) woke up one morning and said she wanted to wear her big girl panties and went the day without having an accident. This got me thinking. Charlotte didn't have any big girls panties.

I wasn't fooling myself. I didn't think Charlotte would be potty trained over night but I thought big girl panties might give her some motivation. So this morning I went to Target and bought a package of princess panties. I have tried to steer Charlotte away from princesses but I have given up. She loves them. I brought them home and we opened them together. She unfolded each one and seemed very excited. She then had to try on each pair. Finally, she decided that she needed to wear all seven pairs at once.

Charlotte had already pooped earlier in the day and usually only goes once a day so I wasn't worried about her pooping in them. Adam and I told her at least 25 times that princess don't like to get peed on and she needed to let one of us know that she needed to use the bathroom. I was half expecting her to pee in the panties but thought no big deal.

After about 20 minutes of wearing the princess panties Charlotte told Adam she needed to poop. He went to the bathroom and got everything set up for her to use the potty. When he took off her panties she had already gone! There was poop EVERYWHERE! I was taking a shower upstairs so Adam was stuck with the mess. I found the situation kind of funny. Adam however was not amused. And Charlotte wasn't even phased.

At least we tried, right?