She's a BIG KID now!

It's official! Jewell is now potty trained and we are down to being a 1 crib household! I can't believe it!!! I'm so proud of our girl Jewell :).

A few months ago my very good friend with 6 kids recommended that I read the book Toilet Training Without Tantrums by John Rosemond. I kept putting it off not wanting to potty train. I just kept hearing that you have to wait until they are "ready." Jewell already wanted to sit on the potty after she went potty so I decided I better read the book. Then one day she threw a tantrum about it so I called my friend. She told me to potty train that day! So I did.

I must say, I was a bit shocked when I read it. He said to potty train between 18 and 24 months because you want to train before the 2 year old battles begin. And, he didn't recommend using rewards like stickers and candy. Um, I'm a teacher Mr. Rosemond, I LIVE by doing that. Instead, he said the reward is going potty independently. But, since my friend had great success with his method I decided to do exactly what the book said (don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing any other method...I'm just explaining his method).

So I started his method. I took Jewell pants off and her diaper. She basically ran around naked for a couple of weeks. Day 1) Accidents all day, Day 2) Accidents again, Day 3) Jewell finally found the potty!, Day 4) Jewell refused to go in the potty all day, Day 5) Jewell only went in the potty!!!! Seriously, after day 5, she's only had 2 accidents and those were in the church nursery when she didn't know where the potty was. I am still shocked. His method definitely worked for our family :). And Jewell takes going potty very seriously! She does wear a pull up for night time only (not naps), but she wakes up dry if I make it to her room when she first wakes up.

Which brings us to the Big Girl Bed. It didn't take me long to figure out that it wasn't exactly fair to say no more diapers and keep Jewell trapped in her crib. We debated about what to do. We really didn't want to buy a mattress right now. So we were going to switch the cribs around since Jefferson's bed turns into a toddler bed without having to buy anything else. We tried taking down his crib one night and the kids cried the entire time. They were so upset! Finally, we gave up. So we decided to wait and think about it some more. Then a very sweet family in our church asked us if we needed a bed. We were like, YES! The Lord provided a free twin mattress and box spring! It's amazing how the Lord provides for us isn't it :). We are so grateful.

So this weekend we had 1 goal. It was to switch Jewell from a crib to a Big Girl Bed. And boy did she LOVE IT! She struggled at nap time at first because we hadn't taken down her crib yet, but we did that today and she's done great since then. She is so cute in her bed. She loves being able to get in it all by herself!

Here are some pictures of her in her new bed. We changed the room around when we set it up. Don't worry, I already have LOTS of plans for decorating the walls now :).