Just to warn you, this is a long post! Not only do I do my
normal update, but I’ve also put in a bit about potty training and also my
mommy thoughts on year two. Read on!
Stats:
Mia is in the 50th percentile for height and the 80th for weight. Everyone always comments on how tall she is. She is pretty much exclusively in 2T for clothes, though she can still fit into shorts that are 24 months. She is out of diapers (yay!), but in 2t-3t pull-ups at night. She’s in size 6 ½ -7 for shoes depending on the store. I think she has finally settled on being right handed. In the last few months, she’s gotten more into coloring/”writing” and I think that has allowed us to see more clearly that she definitely is right handed. When her hair is wet, it reaches to her shoulders in the back. She has all of her teeth now, save for one of the upper molars that hasn’t even begun to emerge yet.
Mia is in the 50th percentile for height and the 80th for weight. Everyone always comments on how tall she is. She is pretty much exclusively in 2T for clothes, though she can still fit into shorts that are 24 months. She is out of diapers (yay!), but in 2t-3t pull-ups at night. She’s in size 6 ½ -7 for shoes depending on the store. I think she has finally settled on being right handed. In the last few months, she’s gotten more into coloring/”writing” and I think that has allowed us to see more clearly that she definitely is right handed. When her hair is wet, it reaches to her shoulders in the back. She has all of her teeth now, save for one of the upper molars that hasn’t even begun to emerge yet.
Schedule:
She has shifted to waking up a bit earlier, usually between 7:30 and 8. Sometimes she’ll still sleep until 9 or so, but those days are pretty rare anymore. She goes down for nap usually between 1 and 2 pm and usually sleeps for about 1.5 hours. Bedtime is still 8 pm. You can definitely tell that Mia is a creature of habit just like me. On days where her nap is pushed back, she’ll tell me “mommy it’s nap time!” so funny!
She has shifted to waking up a bit earlier, usually between 7:30 and 8. Sometimes she’ll still sleep until 9 or so, but those days are pretty rare anymore. She goes down for nap usually between 1 and 2 pm and usually sleeps for about 1.5 hours. Bedtime is still 8 pm. You can definitely tell that Mia is a creature of habit just like me. On days where her nap is pushed back, she’ll tell me “mommy it’s nap time!” so funny!
Milestones:
Potty training! I will give this its own section later on in this post because I feel like I’ve gotten a lot of questions about our methods, but Mia is pretty much fully day-time potty trained! Yay!
Potty training! I will give this its own section later on in this post because I feel like I’ve gotten a lot of questions about our methods, but Mia is pretty much fully day-time potty trained! Yay!
She’s getting much better about using utensils when she
eats. Her face is usually still pretty messy afterwards, but she continues to
improve. I really do think she prefers hand-feeding, but most of the time
she’ll use utensils without too much arguing.
Speaking of arguing, this girl is a pro. She’s become much
more contrary in the past few months. I feel like she kind of views it as a
game. Multiple times every day, we’ll have conversations like this:
Mia: “Where’s Daddy?”
Me: “He’s at work.”
M: “No, he’s not.”
Me: “Yes, he is.”
Rinse and repeat about 50 times until I finally give up and just stop answering. #lifewithatoddler
Mia: “Where’s Daddy?”
Me: “He’s at work.”
M: “No, he’s not.”
Me: “Yes, he is.”
Rinse and repeat about 50 times until I finally give up and just stop answering. #lifewithatoddler
Vocabulary. Oh my gosh. Her vocabulary is huge. She’s
definitely got basic sentence structure down. She’s getting better with
pronouns too. She uses ‘I, me, mine, you’ correctly, but she’s still working on
possessives. One of my favorite things she says is “me’s”. J
She’s become much more imaginative in the past few months.
This has been one of my favorite things to watch her develop. I know it will
only get even better as she ages, and I’m really excited for that! She’s
already so creative!
She’s getting much better at playing independently. She
still really likes for us to watch her play, but she doesn’t really need us to
always be playing with her.
She can count to 15, only occasionally skipping a number or
two.
She can identify most shapes and colors and about 75% of
upper case letters.
If she sees her name written somewhere, she recognizes that
that is her name.
Her recall and memory are getting a lot stronger and more
developed.
We still haven’t managed to ditch the paci during bedtime. I
really hope in the next few months we can make this happen, but it probably won’t
until that last molar comes in.
Big Events:
Easter! This was a fun year for Easter because, like Christmas, she was much more aware of what was going on and able to enjoy her gifts from the Easter bunny! Plus, you know, candy.
Easter! This was a fun year for Easter because, like Christmas, she was much more aware of what was going on and able to enjoy her gifts from the Easter bunny! Plus, you know, candy.
We took a road trip to Indiana (stopping in Memphis on the
way back) last month. This was our first trip post starting potty training, and
that definitely made it more interesting. She did have a few accidents, but
overall she did really well. The trip was super busy, but we had a really good
time!
We went to the pool for the first time this season. She went
to the pool pretty frequently last year, but she was in a baby float, so not
really ‘swimming’ per say. She really loves the water, and this year she’s
using a puddle jumper and seems to really like the relative amount of ‘freedom’
that allows her.
We took Mia to Disney on Ice for the first time as a
birthday present and she absolutely loved it! This girl is definitely all about
the princesses!
Mia’s second birthday party! Since this was on her actual
birthday I’ll include it in this post. She had a princess Belle party and had a
wonderful time celebrating with family and friends. She got so many cool gifts
too!
Going two weeks without a single potty accident! That’s been
our longest stretch so far!
Favorites:
Things do to: reading, playing blocks, playing with baby dolls, pretending to cook, shopping, bubbles, drawing/coloring, swimming, picking flowers
Characters: Princess Belle, Moana and Minnie
Books: She’s still a huge fan of reading! It’s hard to really decide her favorites because she’s pretty open to reading just about anything at the moment. She does really seem to enjoy books with animals as the characters.
Songs: Mia loves music of all kinds! I’d say her favorite songs at the moment are the intro song to Beauty and the Beast and “How Far I’ll Go” and “You’re Welcome” from Moana. She also seems to really like “Do you Hear the People Sing?” from Les Mis, which I find hilarious and awesome.
Food: cheese continues to dominate, yogurt, strawberries, blueberries, mac and cheese, toast, pretty much any bread as long as there’s butter, chicken, raisins, fruit snacks, Cheerios
Toys: Wolfie! Baby dolls, blocks, her doctor kit, buckets, anything related to Beauty and the Beast
Shows: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Blue’s Clues, Bubble Guppies
Movie(s): Beauty and the Beast, Moana, the Little Mermaid
Animals: she loves all animals
Things do to: reading, playing blocks, playing with baby dolls, pretending to cook, shopping, bubbles, drawing/coloring, swimming, picking flowers
Characters: Princess Belle, Moana and Minnie
Books: She’s still a huge fan of reading! It’s hard to really decide her favorites because she’s pretty open to reading just about anything at the moment. She does really seem to enjoy books with animals as the characters.
Songs: Mia loves music of all kinds! I’d say her favorite songs at the moment are the intro song to Beauty and the Beast and “How Far I’ll Go” and “You’re Welcome” from Moana. She also seems to really like “Do you Hear the People Sing?” from Les Mis, which I find hilarious and awesome.
Food: cheese continues to dominate, yogurt, strawberries, blueberries, mac and cheese, toast, pretty much any bread as long as there’s butter, chicken, raisins, fruit snacks, Cheerios
Toys: Wolfie! Baby dolls, blocks, her doctor kit, buckets, anything related to Beauty and the Beast
Shows: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Blue’s Clues, Bubble Guppies
Movie(s): Beauty and the Beast, Moana, the Little Mermaid
Animals: she loves all animals
Here’s a bit about our experiences with potty training. Feel
free to skip this section if you’d like!
So, many people have asked me about our experiences with
potty training. While I definitely recognize that each child is different, this
is what worked/didn’t work for us. Hopefully those of you who are getting ready
to potty train can find some useful information! Mia started showing interest
in the potty around 19 months. And by interest, I mean, she’d sit in the
bathroom while we were going, ask what we were doing, ask to use the potty,
etc. Our original plan was to not start potty training until after she turned
two, but then we decided that we should probably take advantage of this window
and go ahead and give it a go. We officially started actively potty training at
21.5 months. I did a lot of research ahead of time, but it was all really
confusing, and different people suggested different things. In the end, we kind
of created our own plan, but we used a lot of ideas from a book on potty
training called “Oh Crap!” and also
from the 3-day method. Now, I do recommend reading/researching before you
actually start training. I was reading WHILE training, and I think it
contributed to a lot of my confusion and uncertainty. The first two weeks were
really, really hard. Mia would cry and scream any time we took her to potty.
Honestly, I almost gave up. Then one night, Jason and I sat down and talked
about it, and I told him that I felt like the main problem was I felt like we
didn’t really have a plan. Now, granted, when it comes to toddlers, sometimes
you have to change plans and roll with the punches, but I at least wanted to go
into this with some kind of rough draft. Here is what worked for us (and what
I’d suggest for anyone who needs guidance).
In “Oh Crap!” one thing the author focuses on is the stages of potty training. Now, in my opinion, she talks about kids progressing through the stages much faster than they actually do. I’m sure some kids are basically potty trained in 3 days, but mine absolutely wasn’t. Still, I do feel like recognizing these stages in your own kid is key. The first transition is the idea that when you first start, your kid is clueless about what’s going on… then, they shift to kind of an ‘Oh hey! I went pee.’ She suggests starting with your kid totally naked. We skipped that, but for the first few weeks, Mia was only in underwear. We wanted her to be able to recognize when she had had an accident, and that it wasn’t really a pleasant feeling. I feel like if you let a kid go naked, they might not realize that they’ve even gone. For Mia, she seemed to take about 2-3 weeks to reach this stage, and we didn’t leave the house much. When we first started, I was putting her on the potty every 20-30 minutes. As she progressed, we moved to 45 minutes, then to an hour, and so on.
The next stage is when the kid not only recognizes that they went pee, but recognizes when they are actually peeing. We got to this place after about a solid month. Now, what this looked like for Mia was that she’d start to have an accident, but then say “I need to go potty”, stop going and finish the rest in the potty.
The last stage is when the kid recognizes the feeling of “I need to go pee” before actually starting to go. For us, this has only started happening with Mia in the past few weeks, and definitely isn’t solidified yet.
Now, that’s basically the framework. I’m not at all saying this is the only way to go, just the way that worked for us. On average, Mia still has about one accident a week. I will say she picked up on pooping way faster than pee, and from everything I’ve heard, most kids are the opposite. Here are some additional tips I’d give. I want to emphasize that these are tips that worked for us, but might not for you and your family. I’m not judging or saying anyone else’s methods are wrong! A lot of these tips are taken from “Oh Crap!” but some of them are just things we discovered along the way.
1. Do nighttime training separately from day time. We haven’t started tackling night time training. She still wears a pull-up to bed. We tell her “it’s hard to hold your pee-pee at night, so we wear diapers to bed. In the morning, we put our panties back on.” She seems to get this. I realized that this is going to be a big step requiring her to have awesome bladder control, and so we want to wait until she’s closer to 100% comfortable with going potty before we tackle it. Not to mention, Mia is still in her crib, so even if she did get up to go at night, she wouldn’t be able to get out of bed. One thing I’ll add is that the author of “Oh Crap!” recommends that you do nighttime training before your kid is 3 ½ . Apparently doing it after this age significantly increases the chances of having a bed wetter, because at this age, the bladder muscles are pretty well developed. We plan to start working on it sometime this summer after we’ve converted her bed.
2. Find something that motivates your kid to go, whatever that is. We started with Mia using M&Ms, but found pretty quickly that didn’t work. Turns out, Mia needs to be able to see her reward, so we went with a sticker chart. At first she got a sticker anytime she went, then we moved to anytime she went without fussing about it, and most recently to only getting a sticker when she tells us she needs to go. Most experts don’t recommend ‘bribery’, and some kids are even motivated just by praise alone. Do what works for yours.
3. Make a plan, but realize that plans sometimes need to be altered. We’ve found that the best thing to do is to set goals, and only move on to the next step in your plan when the goals are met.
4. Be patient! From everything I’ve heard from other parents, most kids aren’t potty trained in 3 days. I’m not saying you shouldn’t fully commit to it, but don’t get discouraged. Stick with it even when it seems like it’s not working.
5. Don’t regress! Once you say no more diapers, don’t use diapers or pull-ups at all during the day. This is SO confusing to kids. And yes, pull-ups are basically diapers with cooler characters. You may be going through 10 pairs of underwear per day, but hang in there and don’t give up! For the record, those puppy training mats work great for keeping car seats dry! J It helps to know in advance you’re going to start and give your kid warning. Something like “Okay, we’re going to finish this box of diapers, and then, no more diapers!”
6. Sometimes kids don’t understand when you put them on the potty and tell them to go. Try saying something like, “I need to hear you pee-pee!” that really works with Mia!
7. We skipped the potty chair altogether. She uses a seat on the big potty. Some kids are scared at first of the big potty, so do what works for you, but for me, I wanted to avoid the mess of cleaning one of those chairs.
8. Please use anatomically correct terms. They’re called vaginas and penises, not hoo-hoos and ding-dongs.
9. You can call poop and pee anything you want, but be consistent. Use a word that you don’t mind saying out loud in public, because believe me, you will! We use poo-poo and pee-pee.
10. In the beginning, when you put your kid on the potty and they go, tell them. Say things like “awesome! You’re going pee-pee!” We’ve found that helped Mia to recognize the feeling of needing to go.
11. Don’t start training around the time of a vacation or during a major transition like having a sibling, converting to a toddler bed, taking away pacifier, or weaning. Let this be the only change going on, it will probably make it easier on everyone involved!
12. Make it a fun experience. Let the kids pick out their own underwear and potty seat or chair.
13. Kids like routine, so incorporate it into things you already do. Wake up in the morning, go pee. Getting ready to eat a meal? Go pee. Before you get in the car? Go pee. Etc.
In “Oh Crap!” one thing the author focuses on is the stages of potty training. Now, in my opinion, she talks about kids progressing through the stages much faster than they actually do. I’m sure some kids are basically potty trained in 3 days, but mine absolutely wasn’t. Still, I do feel like recognizing these stages in your own kid is key. The first transition is the idea that when you first start, your kid is clueless about what’s going on… then, they shift to kind of an ‘Oh hey! I went pee.’ She suggests starting with your kid totally naked. We skipped that, but for the first few weeks, Mia was only in underwear. We wanted her to be able to recognize when she had had an accident, and that it wasn’t really a pleasant feeling. I feel like if you let a kid go naked, they might not realize that they’ve even gone. For Mia, she seemed to take about 2-3 weeks to reach this stage, and we didn’t leave the house much. When we first started, I was putting her on the potty every 20-30 minutes. As she progressed, we moved to 45 minutes, then to an hour, and so on.
The next stage is when the kid not only recognizes that they went pee, but recognizes when they are actually peeing. We got to this place after about a solid month. Now, what this looked like for Mia was that she’d start to have an accident, but then say “I need to go potty”, stop going and finish the rest in the potty.
The last stage is when the kid recognizes the feeling of “I need to go pee” before actually starting to go. For us, this has only started happening with Mia in the past few weeks, and definitely isn’t solidified yet.
Now, that’s basically the framework. I’m not at all saying this is the only way to go, just the way that worked for us. On average, Mia still has about one accident a week. I will say she picked up on pooping way faster than pee, and from everything I’ve heard, most kids are the opposite. Here are some additional tips I’d give. I want to emphasize that these are tips that worked for us, but might not for you and your family. I’m not judging or saying anyone else’s methods are wrong! A lot of these tips are taken from “Oh Crap!” but some of them are just things we discovered along the way.
1. Do nighttime training separately from day time. We haven’t started tackling night time training. She still wears a pull-up to bed. We tell her “it’s hard to hold your pee-pee at night, so we wear diapers to bed. In the morning, we put our panties back on.” She seems to get this. I realized that this is going to be a big step requiring her to have awesome bladder control, and so we want to wait until she’s closer to 100% comfortable with going potty before we tackle it. Not to mention, Mia is still in her crib, so even if she did get up to go at night, she wouldn’t be able to get out of bed. One thing I’ll add is that the author of “Oh Crap!” recommends that you do nighttime training before your kid is 3 ½ . Apparently doing it after this age significantly increases the chances of having a bed wetter, because at this age, the bladder muscles are pretty well developed. We plan to start working on it sometime this summer after we’ve converted her bed.
2. Find something that motivates your kid to go, whatever that is. We started with Mia using M&Ms, but found pretty quickly that didn’t work. Turns out, Mia needs to be able to see her reward, so we went with a sticker chart. At first she got a sticker anytime she went, then we moved to anytime she went without fussing about it, and most recently to only getting a sticker when she tells us she needs to go. Most experts don’t recommend ‘bribery’, and some kids are even motivated just by praise alone. Do what works for yours.
3. Make a plan, but realize that plans sometimes need to be altered. We’ve found that the best thing to do is to set goals, and only move on to the next step in your plan when the goals are met.
4. Be patient! From everything I’ve heard from other parents, most kids aren’t potty trained in 3 days. I’m not saying you shouldn’t fully commit to it, but don’t get discouraged. Stick with it even when it seems like it’s not working.
5. Don’t regress! Once you say no more diapers, don’t use diapers or pull-ups at all during the day. This is SO confusing to kids. And yes, pull-ups are basically diapers with cooler characters. You may be going through 10 pairs of underwear per day, but hang in there and don’t give up! For the record, those puppy training mats work great for keeping car seats dry! J It helps to know in advance you’re going to start and give your kid warning. Something like “Okay, we’re going to finish this box of diapers, and then, no more diapers!”
6. Sometimes kids don’t understand when you put them on the potty and tell them to go. Try saying something like, “I need to hear you pee-pee!” that really works with Mia!
7. We skipped the potty chair altogether. She uses a seat on the big potty. Some kids are scared at first of the big potty, so do what works for you, but for me, I wanted to avoid the mess of cleaning one of those chairs.
8. Please use anatomically correct terms. They’re called vaginas and penises, not hoo-hoos and ding-dongs.
9. You can call poop and pee anything you want, but be consistent. Use a word that you don’t mind saying out loud in public, because believe me, you will! We use poo-poo and pee-pee.
10. In the beginning, when you put your kid on the potty and they go, tell them. Say things like “awesome! You’re going pee-pee!” We’ve found that helped Mia to recognize the feeling of needing to go.
11. Don’t start training around the time of a vacation or during a major transition like having a sibling, converting to a toddler bed, taking away pacifier, or weaning. Let this be the only change going on, it will probably make it easier on everyone involved!
12. Make it a fun experience. Let the kids pick out their own underwear and potty seat or chair.
13. Kids like routine, so incorporate it into things you already do. Wake up in the morning, go pee. Getting ready to eat a meal? Go pee. Before you get in the car? Go pee. Etc.
That’s all I really have for now. It’s been a real learning
experience for me! Another good reason for me to jot all of this down is so
that I can remember with any future kids we may have!
Mommy thoughts on year two:
Wow, what a year this has been! If I thought Mia changed a
lot during her first year of life, this one was even more so. When I think
about all of the major changes that she’s had this year, it’s almost too much!
Since May 20 of last year, she stopped nursing, started walking, started
(really) talking, developed the ability to feed herself, started running and
climbing, grew about 12 teeth, ditched diapers, and so much more. She’s
becoming much more independent, which is both wonderful and difficult. I would
be lying if I said I don’t miss the days of having my tiny little baby, being
able to snuggle her anytime I wanted, but it is also fun. I’m more able now to
just give her a bucket of toys and let her play and explore her world (still
under my watchful eye of course!). She’s becoming her own little person with
her own personality and that has been amazing to witness in the past year. I’ll
admit that this has also been a challenging time for me as a mom. Knowing how
and when to invoke discipline has been hard for me. There are so many different
theories on when to discipline, when not to, and how to do it. The scientist in
me has a hard time not doing tons of research, but honestly in a lot of ways,
doing that much research makes raising a child more confusing for me. I’ve kind
of had to learn this year how to take good advice, but also how to do things
for myself as a mom based on what’s best for Mia. I’m not saying that child
development experts and doctors don’t know what they’re saying or that they
give bad advice, but I’m working to learn how to take that advice and tailor it
to what best works for Mia and our family. I know this is a skill I’ll have to
continue to develop as she ages. In any case, I’m enjoying motherhood so much.
It’s definitely the hardest and most rewarding job that I’ve ever had, and I wouldn’t
change anything for the world. I’m excited for what year three holds for Mia,
and for me as a mom. Stayed tuned to find out right along with us!
And since you made it this far, here are some pictures from
the past 3 months!
She wears that beanie way better than I do!
Mandatory Texas baby in the bluebonnets photo
Happy Easter!
Enjoying all the animals at the Memphis zoo
Mother's day with my girl!
Happy birthday sweet girl!
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