Dry

More Progress

(Documented in the blog mostly for myself since I know that no one really cares about this - except maybe my mom).
Avery woke with a dry diaper for the second consecutive day. When we went out to dinner last night, she considered using the bathroom at the restaurant several times, but each time we went in, she decided she "no like it!" On the way home, she said she had to go potty. I said that she'd have to hold it until we got home and asked if she could. She said yes, which I find interesting since we've never discussed "holding" it. In any case, we got home and she was completely dry. Woohoo! She dutifully went potty then, as well as before bed. So, yesterday was our first official 24 hour period with no accidents, no diaper changes, and completely dry diapers in naps and bedtime.

Progress in Reverse

And now that we've had all that potty training progress, let's talk about some backsliding: Avery's napping and sleeping has been awful the past few days, specifically the getting-to-sleep vs staying-asleep part.

We took the front off the side of her crib since I couldn't, with any peace of mind, let her sleep in the crib when I know she can and will easily climb out of it. Of course, this minor change threw a total wrench into her getting-to-sleep efforts last night. I decided that I was going to make sure she had a fairly pleasant experience for her first night of freedom (i.e. ability to get out of bed). It was preceded with lots of unpleasantness since she refused to brush her teeth properly and refused to allow me to read to her. It took several time outs to get to the point where she finally brushed her teeth well enough to call it good, then it took a few more time outs for her to let me read to her.

When it came time to attempt to fall asleep, she just played in her bed and got in and out of it. I sat in the rocking chair during this, until she finally came up to me in the chair and asked to fall asleep in my arms. Within about a minute of me holding her at this point, she fell asleep; however, it took about 1 - 1.5 hours to get her to sleep last night. I wouldn't mind that amount of time nearly as much if it was spent reading books and doing other preparations, but most of last night was spent convincing her to stay in her bed, convincing her to let me read to her, doing some time outs to convince her to let me brush her teeth or to have her do it more effectively herself (she eventually chose the latter), etc.

I know that nap time and going to bed are probably going to be this way for a while. Plus there's the whole issue of her waking up in the middle of the night. She went back to sleep all right (D took care of it, so I'm simply reporting that information), but she did get out of bed, open her door and then stood screaming at the gate we'd put up earlier. It's going to find a while to find what works for us and for her in terms of getting her to sleep and back to sleep without the crib confining her.

Today

Jeremy, Avery and I are now heading out to piddle around town. He was quite the sport for going food carting with toddlers yesterday. This morning Avery asked for "Jeremy!" Last night, she said, "Thank you, Jeremy!" when he paid for our dinner (tsk, tsk for us not getting to the bill in time, but, thank you, Jeremy!)