Tag: toddler

How I Potty Trained My Toddler

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I’m just going to come straight out and say it – potty training sucks. If you’re a parent you already know this, and if not, let me just give you a glimpse into our nightmare. It can be extremely difficult, your house constantly smells like pee, you’re constantly, and I mean CONSTANTLY, doing laundry. I have yet to meet a mom who actually enjoys the potty-training stage. Luckily, I found a way to get through it once and hopefully I can do it a second time. Here are a few tips and tricks to get you though potty-training.

This one may seem over the top so bear with me! I was beyond tired of having to steam clean my carpet every time Savannah had an accident, but if I didn’t do it, the entire house would smell like pee. So, I decided to put down pee pads! You’re probably thinking that I’m crazy but hear me out. I didn’t have them everywhere, just in a path from the bathroom to where Savannah’s toys were. This way if she had an accident while playing, which was very common, I didn’t have to deep clean every time. It was also helpful when she was trying to get to the bathroom and didn’t make it in time! I would switch out whatever ones got dirty during the day and would replace all of them in the morning. Like I said, it may seem a little over the top, but it made my life so much easier.

Always keep your child in underwear at home! Obviously, this means that accidents are going to go every where, but that’s the joy of potty-training. Having them in underwear all the time means they actually have to pull them all the way down to be able to go to the bathroom. Now, you’re probably thinking that they can learn that in a pull-up too. The only problem with that is aside from the fact that a pull-up can be pulled up and down, it feels just like a diaper. Kids are used to the feeling of sitting in their diaper after going to the bathroom, so it doesn’t really prompt them to try the potty, or to tell you that they have gone. However, when wearing underwear, the wetness will go every where and down their leg, and with it being a new feeling, most kids won’t like it, and will try to avoid the feeling so they tend to try and use the potty more. But, when we went out places with Savannah, we would put her in a pull=up to avoid accidents while out in public but would still ask and encourage using the bathroom.

When we were at home and she was in her underwear, we would ask if she had to go pee every twenty minutes or so. Even if she said no, we tried to have her on the potty once every half hour. Even when we were out somewhere and she was in a pull-up, we would still ask every twenty minutes and if we were able to, we would sit her on the toilet so she could try to go. Having consistency is one of the most important things in potty-training, and I think that’s one of the things that is forgotten most times.

Doing this for awhile, will help them be fully day trained. Night training is a little different and more difficult since most kids are heavy sleepers, like Savannah. We made sure she had a waterproof cover on her mattress incase she had any accidents. We tried to make sure that she didn’t have anything to drink for about an hour before bedtime to try and reduce the urge of peeing in her sleep. Even though she didn’t have anything to drink, we would still put her in a pull-up for bedtime. We found an awesome approach which helped her wake up dry! Because we had just had Elle around the time potty-training started, every time she woke up for a bottle, we would wake Savannah up and have her to on the potty. You can still do this even if you don’t have another child, because I’m sure most people are like me and wake up at least once to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

After doing this for a few nights and having her always wake up dry, we started trying to put her to bed in underwear. After two nights in a row in underwear and having accidents, we put her back in a pull-up for bed, thinking that she wasn’t ready yet. When she woke up dry for a week straight, we tried underwear again. Since that day, she hasn’t had any accidents in her sleep! She is 100% dry all the time! Because Elle stuck very closely to her routine, she would wake up around the same time every night. Which means we always woke Savannah up at around the same time every night. It eventually got to the point where we could hear Savannah wake up and go to the bathroom over the baby monitor as Elle was having her bottle. Now, she always gets up on her own at night and it fully potty trained!

How I Traveled With An Infant And A Toddler

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Travelling with a child can be quite a challenge. However, travelling with multiple children is beyond difficult. Back in November, I traveled with both kids, who were three and seven months at the time, to go visit my dad in Vancouver. Unfortunately, we were unable to get a direct flight, so we flew from London, to Toronto, to Vancouver. We had the same problem on the way back, so we had connecting flights again. Luckily, I had a few tricks up my sleeve to make this trip go as smoothly as possible since I have flown before with just Savannah.

For those who have never flown with children, let me give you a quick little run down on how the flights work. Children aged two and under, are free so they don’t require a seat, so they sit on your lap. You do have the option to buy them a seat if you want them in a car seat during the flight. All babies are allowed a diaper bag as a carry on. Any child over the age of two, requires a seat, and in turn are allowed one carry on bag. Female travellers can have their purse and a carryon bag. So, when thinking about it, it is four bags all together. I also had my carrier with me for Elle so that it made the walk to connecting flights a million times easier. This may seem like a lot but trust me when I say that you need it. When travelling with children, you can bring two of the following three items for each child: car seat, playpen, and stroller. For this trip, I only brought car seats for each child because my dad had a play pen and air mattress for the girls to sleep on, as well as a double stroller so there was no need for me to bring more than I had to.

When travelling with an infant who is formula fed, or even breastfed, you can bring your own water. They allow you for the sole purpose of needing water to make a formula bottle and so you can keep as hydrated as needed if breastfeeding. They just do a quick drug test through the outside of the water bottle and will send you on your way. They also do the same quick check with the squeezable baby food pouches. They are very lenient when it comes for travelling with an infant because they want the flight to go as easy as possible for you and everyone else on the plane.

For Elle’s diaper bag, I tried to keep it as packed as possible to I could have everything I needed, or thought I needed, in arm’s reach. We had the obvious stuff like diapers, wipes, formula, water, bottles, and food. I also put in a change of clothes, an extra soother, a soother clip, some toys, and her special blanket. Like I said before, I also made sure that I had the carrier so that it was easier to walk through the airport, but to also make takeoff and landing easier (they have to be on your lap with their head in your chest for both). For Savannah, I brought some snacks, a pull up in case she wanted to sleep, her blanket and favourite stuffie, kids’ headphones and an Ipad full of kids’ games and cartoons. Usually, I’m not all for a lot of screen time but with this situation, I just wanted it to go as smooth as possible, so I just let it happen.  

My purse had all my essentials, a book, some snacks and everyone’s birth certificates and health cards. In my carryon, I had my camera, laptop and charger, notebook and textbooks (it was close to exam season). So needless to say, all the carryon items we had had a fair share of stuff in them. This was obviously a big pain to carry between flights, but I would’ve been so screwed without having everything that I did.

Once we were settled into our seats and waiting for takeoff, I would set Savannah up with a show in the Ipad and give her the blanket and stuffie. After Savannah was all set up, I would give Elle a bottle while she was still in the carrier. If she fell asleep there after the bottle, I would keep her there until she woke up. If she didn’t fall asleep, I would take her out and put the carrier under my seat then let her play with some toys. It was a lot to do this for a total of four flights in ten days, but it was the easiest way to get it done.

Unfortunately, the way home didn’t go as smooth. The flight from Vancouver to Toronto was great, but we ended up having a six and a half hour in Toronto. So, after a four-and-a-half-hour flight that we were all awake for, we were exhausted. I ended up holding both kids who fell asleep and ended up falling asleep myself for about an hour. After waking up, my arms were numb from holding both kids, who were still sleeping. Since we had already been there for so long, I just wrapped them up in their blankets and put them on the carpeted floor to sleep since we were the only people there. They slept like this for about another two hours. Once they woke up, we went to Tim Horton’s to get some lunch and played ISpy for about 3 hours off and on. Now, I’m not the biggest fan of flying but I couldn’t have been happier to hear the boarding call for our flight. After an eighteen-minute flight, we were finally home, and I had never been so happy to be back in London Ontario.

Now, it may not have seemed like I did a lot to make it go easier, or it may even look like I took the easy way out. But, regardless of what I did, I had two happy, non-screaming kids through all four flights, and it wasn’t as hard ad I feared it would be.