Attempting to Sweeten the Pot-ty

Over a year ago, when Natalie was only 22 months old, a close friend of ours began potty training her daughter (only 5 months older than Natalie) and within a week they'd found dry diaper success! Because this little girl's Dora the Explorer potty chair accompanied her to a play date or two at our house, Natalie witnessed this potty-ing first hand and was very curious to try it herself. I did not encourage it like I should have back then (I'd done no potty training research, I had no training pants, no potty chair, no interest in trying to take Natalie into airplane bathrooms...a trip across the country was only days away...and frankly, no patience for it as our life then was in such chaos). Oh, how I wish I could go back and slap that "full-of-excuses" old me and tell her that one year later I'd have a child totally disinterested in the potty!

I thought we had it down months ago...but then disaster struck...or should I say, gulped! Natalie won a Dora sticker every time she went on the potty. One particular time, she immediately stuck the sticker on a little plastic Easter egg she was carrying around at the time. Well, when we proudly flushed, Natalie was so busy clapping and congratulating herself that she dropped the egg into the toilet while the water was making it's final lap and down it went never to be seen again. Natalie as so mad at that potty for swallowing her egg and her new sticker that she really wanted nothing to do with it for weeks. Then, life got crazy again and I stopped trying.

Now we're serious. Here's the chart we made. She gets a sticker and a stamp every time she goes on the potty. Yep, only 3 stamps the first full week. You're seeing it correctly.


If she goes 8 times, she gets a new My Little Pony. Yes, the Pony is still in the box a week later.

I thought we had her now. Stickers+ stamps,+My Little Ponies= most of Natalie's current favorite things . She woke up from a nap and I showed her the chart and excitedly explained how in one short day of 8 potty visits she could be playing with a new pony and she should start right now. Her response, accompanied by a shrug of indifference, as she reviewed the criteria and the reward, "maybe tomorrow".

Corey got desperate at this point and put Mango Tic Tacs in with the stickers and told her she could have 1 (no, 2, no 3, maybe 4!!) Tic Tacs, too, each time she went. No sale.

We've now resorted to an obnoxiously huge jar of jelly beans. That worked twice. She's over jelly beans now, apparently.

So, the Dora potty that we've now inherited sits lonely most days.


In another month we'll be deliriously desperate and offering to buy her a real pony! Then she'll be interested!