At one point, Matt came home to find me sobbing in our bathroom.
It was a good time.
My mom, having raised a child like Holynd, suggested a sticker chart. "She'll like to see how good she's doing. She's a perfectionist.".
However, having been a child much like Holynd, I was worried that all she'd do was use the bathroom 30 times in one day in order to fill up the chart and get a reward.
We eventually got passed the regression without a chart and life moved on.
About a month ago, Holynd was having potty-training trouble again. Not anything as bad as before, she was just waiting too long to go and having small accidents. A lot of the time, I would find her wiggling like crazy outside of the bathroom. She knew that if she stood up the inevitable would happen, so she just sat there wiggling and crying until I came and carried her to the potty.
I had recently decided that Holynd could use a few chores around the house, just to give her a tiny bit of responsibility. Things like putting her dirty clothes in the hamper and learning how to make her bed. Nothing crazy.
I decided to put my mom's suggestion to the test and went with a sticker chart for chores. She had three chores a day. Her morning chore was to make her bed and put her sippy cup in the sink. Her afternoon chore was going potty before and after her naps. And, finally, her nighttime chore was putting her toothbrush away and putting her dirty clothes in the hamper. She could earn three stickers a day, BUT if she had an accident I had to take two stickers off the chart. (She also loses her mimi privileges.) Once she got to 30 stickers, she got to go on a date with her dad, just the two of them.
When I was explaining the chart to her, I kept thinking, "This is lame and she knows it's lame!" After I explained everything to her, I asked what she wanted to do for her date. "I want daddy to take me swimming!" "Ok.... Do you want the whole family to go? Or just daddy?" "Just daddy and me".
Okie doke.
Matt's a trooper and agreed.
The chart I made up was drawn on a lined piece of paper. It's pretty much the ugliest thing you've ever seen.
Last night, she filled it up! She was so excited she was kissing and hugging everyone.
We made a big deal, took lots of pictures and celebrated.
It took her about 2 weeks to fill it up. She got a total of 4 stickers taken away for small accidents.
I will admit, I'm skeptical about how long it will keep working, but hey! you take what you can get. ;)
PS: mimi = blanket. Holynd has two mimi's that she likes to sleep with every night. If she has an accident she has to go a night without them. It's what got us through the last regression.
