Potty Training has begun!

The big day is finally here! We are starting to potty train Grace. Emma was unbelievably easy to train so we are making up for it this round! I first tried to potty train Grace a few months ago, but she was nowhere near ready! We are giving it a try again and so far everything seems to be going well. This has been a completely different expirience this time around. Children with sensory issues have a lot harder time potty training than other children do. Its also a lot more difficult to decide when to do it. There are certain "potty ready" milestones a child needs to hit before they are ready. Children are not able to physically hold their bladder or bowels before 2 years of age. You then want to look for sign such as being able to hold their bladder at least 2 hours, including naptimes. If they let you know they are wet or poopy, or are able to tell you when they are going. They should also be able to sit on a potty or potty chair unassisted and ideally, be pulling up and down their pants with little to no help. Most children will hit these milestones between 2-3 years of age. For kids with sensory issues, these milestones are often not met till much further down the road. Grace hasnt even reached many of them, but is doing relatively well so far so we are going to keep pressing forward!

Yesterday, she refused to sit on the potty at all! She actually took it apart and hid it in different rooms. Then, once I gave up, she put it together and told me she wanted to go potty! Then she sat down and pooped right away! I was SO excited! I gave her 1/2 a popsicle right away for it (unfortunately it was a red one so I paid for that today!) and made a HUGE deal out of it! Then a little later she also peed! WHoopppeeee!!!

This morning she peed a tiny bit right away, but then peed right away in her diaper. (we are rotating between regular pullups and diapers). She did poop again and pee again on the potty today also! Once she is a little more consistent with it, we are going to feel and learn pullups. The struggle we will have is she doesnt seem to recognize the need to pee, although she can tell me when she is doing it on the potty so its a good start! What potty training methods have worked well for you?