Poop Cake

Parents normally use sticker charts to help a child change a behavior. But...when the behavior is changed, what happens to the sticker chart? For example, I know someone who has used a sticker chart to help her children sleep through the night. Once they were sleeping through the night, they started to expect the sticker, dollar, or other reward. In turn, it created a different habit that had to be broken.

Thus, I have never been a fan of sticker charts. Now, I'll use one if Sariah has medicine and we're using it to keep track of if she's gotten her medicine for the day. Or something similar that has an obvious end to it.

Back to the present. Sariah has been potty-trained for several months. She'll pee in the potty whenever she needs to go! She's never needed me to ask her, and I can count the accidents that she's had on one hand. She's been truly amazing in this regard.

Pooping, however, was a different story. When she had to poop, she would go into her room, get on her night-time underwear (pull-ups), do her business, and then I'd change her. Pooping scared her. But you know what? I'd had enough!

We started talking to her about when she turns 3, we were putting the night-time underwear away and she would be going poop in the potty. Then I thought about it - this was still almost 3 months away. Not going to do it, and neither was Sariah. She's smart - and I'd been letting her call the shots.

Thus, enter the poop cake. For 2 days, I told her that I would make her a poop cake. And when I did, she was going to be a TRUE big girl and go poop on the potty! I wasn't going to reward her with the cake, because then she would expect a reward every time she went poop. We'd kick off her poop adventure with a cake. On Monday, this was the cake that was presented to her:



NOTE: Although the name is poop cake, no poop was involved in making this cake. Just wanted to clear that up.

The deal was once she got a slice of poop cake, she was to go on the potty! Well, she refused to poop on the potty for 2 days. She begged for her night-time underwear, but I knew what would happen if she got to do that even once. It would all be for nothing!

Today, breakthrough. We talked about how the potty can be scary at first, but then it's not scary anymore. Something clicked, and she pooped! She exclaimed, "I saved the day all by myself!" I praised her for 3 hours about her success. We'll see what tomorrow brings, but now she knows she can do it!