Potty Training - Day 2

Be sure to read Day 1 if you haven't already.

Day 2 was much more challenging than Day 1.  In short, Sam learned how to hold her pee long enough to make it from waking up until nap and from nap until bedtime.  I've never heard of such a thing!

Today, Sam barely even dribbled.  She just held it all day long.  We did the exact same routine as yesterday, keeping her naked and setting the timer and watching her like a hawk.  She sat on the potty a hundred times but we got nothing more than a drip until about 8pm.  I had spent about an hour doing wild and physical play with her.  (When my dog plays like that he always has to pee, so I thought it might work with Sam too.)  I took her to the potty a few times during all this, but nothing was forthcoming.  She drank sippy cup after sippy cup of water and milk, but it all seemed to go into some kind of giant tank she has in that body.  She definitely didn't get my bladder.

Finally, in the middle of playing "jump on mommy" she stopped, grabbed her crotch, and ran to the bathroom on her own.  I looked at Adam across the room and whispered, "This is it.  She's going to go.  I'd bet on it."  And I was right!  She finally made a big pee.  But it was the only one for the whole day.  She played for another hour with no need to let it out.  I've decided that Sam's new theme song is "Control" by Janet Jackson, which we just happened to hear on the radio tonight.  "Control...now I'm all grown up."

There were other strange happenings on Day 2.  Last night, Adam and I watched a movie and forgot to turn on the baby monitor and when we went upstairs, we heard Sam crying.  I could tell something was wrong, so I raced into her room and she told me that her ear hurt.  We gave her some Ibuprofen and I held her for about a half hour then she went back to sleep.  This morning there was no mention of a pain in her ear.  Was she making it up?  I'm not sure.

Then, there is the mysterious fact that, although Sammy went all day without a diaper yesterday, she developed a terrible diaper rash last night.  It could be all the extra juice, or the fact that she was constantly dribbling all over herself and we didn't use the baby wipes, but just toilet paper.  Or maybe it was the stress of it all.  But it was an inconvenient thing to happen because it made all of her excretions very painful.  I've been telling her for ages that when she starts using the potty she'll have less diaper rash, so it made me feel like a liar and I was really concerned that it would be traumatic.  But after a successful Number 1 and Number 2, I think she's ok.

Another strange thing was that Sam took a 2.5 hour nap.  This is Ol' Reliable we're talking about here.  She's a one hour napper, and when she sleeps longer than 1.5 hours, I start to worry.  We actually had to wake her up after 2.5 hours.  Was she exhausted?  Or was she just maximizing her diaper time?

Anyway, it was a difficult day.  Being me, I was stressed out all day because Sam wasn't using the potty.  But, wait!  She didn't make any messes all day and when she finally needed to go, she went to the potty on her own.  Isn't that the definition of being potty trained?  She just had to do it her own way.  This girl is going to be one difficult teenager.