Updates on the girls
This is Tessa’s soulful look – a pathetic plea to be released from captivity of the evil high chair:
This is Sabrina’s attempt to immitate. The child just can’t help but be joyful:
I asked for advice from all of you because Tessa wasn’t able to eat any solids without gagging and throwing up. I wanted to give a quick update since all of you were kind enough to take a few minutes to offer your thoughts.
Tessa still isn’t allowing me to feed her anything solid or with chunks. But, I have been making her cereal thicker and thicker and am hoping to start mixing in some Stage 3 fruits – starting small and then increasing the amount to hopefully trick her into it. I’ve also discovered that if I put some broken cheerios and/or gerber puffs on her tray, she will put them in her mouth now. She doesn’t actually swallow most of them – the spits the mush back out (lovely mess). But I have to think that she must accidentally swallow a little of it here and there. It is much more fun for her and for me when she is the one shoving them in her mouth instead of me doing it repeatedly.
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On the Sabrina front, she is doing a great job with potty training. We’ve had 3 accidents in just over a week and I think 2 of them were parental error. It requires constant reminders and a lot of patience for listening to her whine about how she doesn’t want to/have to/need to go…but I think it is going really well.
I do wonder at what point we back off the rewards. For a variety of reasons, we quit rewarding each trip to the potty and started rewarding 1/2 days of success. If at nap time she is dry, she gets a treat – the same goes at bedtime. It seems to be working well and I’m not suggesting we quit rewarding yet…I’m just curious how you all wean them off the treats? I don’t want to have to clue her first boyfriend into the reward system.
For the rewards, I kinda just backed off and only gave them when he asked. He stopped asking within a couple of days.
The Boy woke up one day at 2.5 years, wanted to wear big boy underwear, and didn’t have even one accident after that. I have no tips to offer. Yes, we realize that was waaayyy too easy, and also think that at some point we will get hit out of the blue with some behavior and then say, “So that’s why potty training was so easy!”
we’re supposed to wean them off treats?
I swear e will be 40 and demand a lollipop from her lifepartner for poopoopottying.
We started “running out”… like “Good job! We’re out of potty prizes right now… but we’ll get one next time we’re out” and we would (if she remembered). Slowly they start forgetting to ask for a prize each time they do their business. I was actually surprised with both of mine how quickly the prizes faded away once everything “clicked” with the pottying.
When we were working on staying dry through the night, I made a big deal of promising H that if she stayed dry for 5 nights in a row, we’d go to the store and she could pick out her own “big girl panties.” Twice she made it 4 nights then had an accident, but when she finally did it, she was SO excited!! I made a special dessert to celebrate and then we went to Target and she got to pick, all by herself, a package of very cool Tinkerbell panties. I think for two days after that she would drop trou anywhere we went just to show them off to every stranger we saw. But at least the treats were pretty much history 🙂
Both of mine stopped asking after a few days and if they didn’t ask, I wasn’t going to bring it up. They became more interested in the praise and washing their hands. Glad to hear that she’s making progress. It’s a big accomplishment.
Well Madeline potty trained in October and we’re just now at the point where we don’t have to tell her “mood job” after EVERY potty break. She was never into treats, just being told “mood job” and also telling me when I go “mood job”.
They are both stinkin’ cute!!!
I agree with the others that said the rewards just kind of slowly phase out on their own. They do stop asking every time and it also gets to where you can tell them they’re doing great and no treat this time without a big hissy. Before you know it, the treats are done.
At the beginning Gabbie wanted and needed rewards. Once she caught one though and really got the potty thing she stopped asking for the most part. Now she never does because going potty is normal and something she does because she has to go. I agree that it will phase out on its own. I bet it will be sooner than later too! It sounds like Sabrina is doing great!
that first pic of Tessa is priceless, and I see she is in the jammies of Sabrina’s that were my favorite!!
Yeah on the potty training. I’ll send Reese your way. He still refuses to even try. Maybe before he starts dating, but if not, I will just send his girlfriend with Depends….
As you already know, every child is so different. I found that with our fourth and final child, Emily that she just plain down and out did NOT do well with ANY 3rd stage baby food. We ended up taking longer and exposing her to “people food” and after a time, she did better with that than the stage 3 baby food.
best wishes, Rhonda
The girls are too cute. Seriously – they are adorable, even Tessa with her pleading face to get out of the high chair!
I love Tessa’s soulful look!
I can’t remember about the potty treats. I’ve probably blocked it.
love all of the new pics, especially the first one of tessa! such a soulful look on her sweet face. wanted to respond re weaning of treats . . . we just told sophia that once the candy jar full of skittles that we kept on the bathroom counter was empty the treats would be finished and she’d just go potty for the sake of going potty because that’s what big girls do. surprisingly, she accepted it. this time around we were smart and bought the small bag of skittles, so they ran out relatively quickly. when charlotte was potty training, we bought the three pound bag of them from costco and i swear it took two years to finish that thing. good luck!