Tag: toddler

5 Things I Would Have Never Guessed About Potty Training

Posted on by Sarah Marshall

Brooke has been in the process of potty training for about 6 months now. We’re pretty laid back about it but that doesn’t mean we haven’t had our share of frustrations with it. Which leads me to:

5 Things I Would Have Never Guessed About Potty Training

  1. It can be just as messy as diapers. I don’t know what made me think that the mere shift from a diaper to a pull-up would make changing time any cleaner.  It’s not.
  2. Speaking of pull-ups….why exactly are they more expensive than regular diapers?  And they don’t seem to ever be part of my favorite deal at Babies R Us that gives you gift cards when you buy jumbo boxes.  I’d been planning to build a stash of cloth diapers for our next baby and started early so that we can cloth diaper at home and only buy pull-ups for school.
  3. You spend a lot more time on the bathroom floor. I seriously didn’t clock this much time sitting on the bathroom floor since my morning sickness and college party days combined.  Nothing prepared me for the fact that Brooke was going to view her potty time as a social event.  Heaven knows I’m waiting until I can go uninterrupted again!!
  4. Public bathrooms are even more disgusting. They were bad before but I didn’t think about it much.  Now that I find myself squeezing into a stall with Brooke, holding her on the seat, trying to get her re-dressed with minimal floor-touching,  hoisting her up to the sink to wash her hands I am in a continuous .  Icky Icky!!  When we remember to bring it along, this portable potty seat is really handy though!
  5. How many times we’ d have to interrupt dinner to race her to the potty. Really, how does her body clock seem to know when I’ve just taken a huge bite and she’s just stuck her hands in cottage cheese?

I realize potty training is just a phase and this too shall pass.  Until then, I gotta keep my sense of humor about it all, right?

How to sleep in with a toddler

Posted on by Sarah Marshall
Pretty crazy claim, right? Well this is working for us!!
Brooke has gone through all kinds of stages of sleep in her short 2.25 years on this planet.  She was a great sleeper as a newborn, had some struggles around 8-9 month mark, just about the time things got better from that round, we started again with the multiple wake-ups every night.  Finally, we have found something that works but we still had occasional 5-5:30 wake up calls.  So we were super happy when Santa left this under our tree:
American Innovative Teach Me Time! Talking Alarm Clock and Nightlight* is a night light, teaching clock, alarm clock and just might be the best thing EVER!!! Basically, we set the night light to come at a certain time (for us, 7:30pm). When it does, it shines yellow. We also set a time for it to change to a green light (6:40am on weekdays, 7:00am on weekends). At bedtime, we remind Brooke that its not time to get up until the light is green. It took about two nights for her to really get it but now we are woken up by the sounds of Brooke calling “It’s Geeen, Mommy!! It’s Geeen!!”
Brooke even asked me to use it at naptime and, while its sometimes annoying to program it at both nap & bedtimes, it works so well it would be silly of to not. Its been a great tool to enforce a two hour quiet/nap time every afternoon.
So if you’ve been frustrated by early morning wake-ups or kiddos who have trouble staying down for their naps, I would highly recommend this clock. No one asked me to write about it – I just feel like it would be wrong of me not to share it!!!
*affiliate link