I can officially say, Savannah is a big girl. At 3 years old she has a twin sized bed, no more pacy, can get dressed by her self, and most importantly she can use the potty. All the time!

We’ve been trying sporadically to get her to use the bathroom rather than her diaper for the past year, but she is a stubborn girl. We tried reading books about it, sitting on the potty throughout the day, we put underwear on her to see if that would prompt some feeling of wanting to be a big girl but she would just get extremely upset when she had an accident. It wasn’t working, in my eyes she wasn’t ready and so I let her take the lead but still talk/encourage often.

It comes down to this: Kids will do it when they make up their mind to do it.

I’m the kind of Mom that doesn’t want to force her to do something she clearly isn’t ready for. Who cares if her friends can pee in her potty and Savannah hasn’t yet? It’s not a race. And I know certain family members (*ah hem* someone’s Daddy) that wasn’t potty trained until 4. I could make her sit on that potty all day and I know she wouldn’t do it.

But, it happened one magical night. We were putting her to bed, about to turn the light out and she said, “Mommy! I need to pee-pee!”  I, of course, knowing our potty history roll my eyes and say that she is making excuses to not go to bed, but she did it. And she said in her cute-all-knowing-3-year-old voice, “I told ya!” She made the choice to go potty and she did it. And…she’s been pretty much unstoppable since. She’s never been afraid of public restrooms or afraid of going #2 like I’ve heard other kids. It’s like she just flipped a switch inside and said, “Okay, I can do this!” and she’s already a pro.

And, can I say how nice it it? No worries of running out of diapers, the nasty diaper smell is gone, no more changes in the car while out and about, no more stuffing my purse with diapers. Sure I have to tend to her at each potty break during the day and night, but this is so nice to have a break from diaper duty :-)

No more diapers! At least for 4 more months…