potty-training and strong-willed children

Mya is officially potty trained as of this last week. I was really nervous about this venture and here's why.

1. I felt a lot of pressure because everyone always says "Girls are easier than boys to potty train." I think it totally has to do with the child individually and has nothing to do with gender.

2. Mya is not the kind of kid who gets satisfaction from making me happy. Max absolutely does, but little Mya couldn't care less if I'm happy or not. I wasn't sure how this would work knowing that me saying.."Mya, I'm so proud of you!" 50 million times a day wouldn't matter like it did with Max.

3. My daughter is what you might call a strong-willed child. She does things when she wants and where she wants. Nobody tells her when to pee.

4. The whole "When you do this, I will give you a reward" thing doesn't do it for Mya. If I were to offer her some candy to go potty, she would want the candy RIGHT NOW THANK YOU VERY MUCH and would throw an absolute hissy fit if I were to hold her off from the candy until she went potty.

So, to sum it up, I was scared to death about potty training her. The only thing I had going for me was that she loves competition (Mya..can you go potty before Max does?), she hated wearing wet/dirty diapers, she wants to be like Maggie (next door neighbor) and she has eczema on her bum so badly that I really wanted to get those diapers off of her!!

Since we were seeing the signs that she was ready, we decided to go for it even if we weren't quite ready for the venture. For 3 weeks we put her on the potty every hour or so depending on how much she had to drink. Believe me...this wasn't an easy task. Each time it took some major coaxing to get her to that damn potty. Typically each of her 5 babies would go potty first (each time Mya would follow up with a "good girl" to her baby) and then Mya would show them how she went potty and I would then clap the hands of her babies saying "good girl!" After going through this escapade 10+ times per day, I would just shake my head and tell myself..it'll be worth it when I don't have to buy diapers anymore! Other times I would challenge her to go potty or have her show someone (Max, daddy, Chloe, neighbor kids, etc.) what a big girl she was.

After 3 weeks of this nonsense I decided to run some concerns by a friend of mine who has 3 kids older than mine. She's the best for advice because she just tells me how it is and doesn't sugar coat anything. Anyway...she told me that I was potty trained, but Mya was not. Since she was not telling me she had to go potty, she was not getting it. So, after this discussion, I decided to just let her go and if she had lots of accidents we would go back to diapers for awhile. This was all little miss independent needed apparently. She just wanted to do it on her own time and she didn't even want to tell me she was going! A couple times a day I go into the bathroom only to find potty in her potty chair but she never said anything. She also has a bladder of steel (2-3 hours in between her trips to the bathroom) so I just have to bite my tongue and let her do it on her own.

All in all..we're really proud of Mya and also proud of ourselves for taking on the challenge and winning. Based on her first 2 years of life, we think we're in for a few more challenges, but I think we're up for it! She's a pretty cool kid, but might need a little different approach:) Here are a few "quotes" that Chris and I live by these days:)

"You should not blame yourself for the temperament with which your child was born. She is simply a tough kid to handle, and your task is to match her stride for stride"

"The best news for parents of strong-willed children is the rapid decrease in their rebellion in young adulthood. It drops almost immediately in the early twenties and then trails off even more from there. Some are still angry into their twenties and early thirties, but by then the fire is gone for the majority. They peacefully rejoin the human community."

Ahhhh, there is hope;)