Saturday, June 20, 2009

Moving in the right direction

I figured I ought to write about our attempts at potty training. Yes, this post is about poop and pee. So stop reading now if you don't care to read about such topics.

We got a potty chair from a co-worker when I was pregnant with Dean. When I was doing the cloth diapering trial it seemed like a good time to introduce the concept at least, knowing full well he probably wouldn't really get it. So I pulled it out. Since he was pretty young the chair was a little too tall for him to sit on by himself, plus the hole seemed way too small for a boy. If he ever made any mention of the potty, or wanted to sit on it, we let him try. I was getting pretty frustrated with the ergonomically incorrect potty chair, so I purchased a bjorn potty off of craigslist. Waaaayyyy better. He could sit on it by himself and the hole seemed correctly proportioned so a boy fit without spraying everywhere.

He's starting to get the concept a little more, and he'll request to go at least once a day. However, he doesn't quite understand timing. He'll request to go "pee pee" most frequently after he's just pooped in his diaper. Since I have to change his diaper anyway, I figure it doesn't hurt to let him try. He likes to sit down, stand up, sit down, stand up. That's a bit tiresome, but at least he's not afraid of the potty. We've had one incident of pee all over the floor, but twice he's actually made it in the potty. It's pretty cute to see him try to "squeeze it out" when I tell him to. He'll even make grunting sounds and really make an effort to push. haha. Not bad. I just need to start putting him on his toilet (without him necessarily requesting) in the morning right after he's had a sippy full of milk. That's almost a guaranteed poop time. Maybe that would help him understand that poop goes in the potty as well.

Here's to hoping he'll be out of diapers by 2 1/2! (I think that's totally possible.)

5 comments:

AmyJane said...

Oh, potty training. I think the really strange thing about it is that it comes up at a time when you've kind of been cruising along with your toddler, thinking you kind of have things down pat. You know? It's like you haven't had to tackle anything really new in quite a lot of months and here comes the potty thing and with the first kiddo it's a steep learning curve.
I think the familiarizing stuff really does work--lay a good groundwork and then let the kid take the lead. Patrick was fully daytime trained by 2 3/4 and nighttime trained by 3, if that helps with a frame of reference. Although, here we are at 3 1/2 and there's still the very occasional nighttime accident if there's too much liquid during the day, or he played to hard and is sleeping deeply. Patience is the name of the game, right?
Good luck!

randa_joy said...

Addie is STILL in that phase. I will catch her pooping or she will come and tell me she needs to poop, except she already has. She will then pee in the potty and try to coax her BM out saying, "Come on, poo-poo."

-Laura- said...

Oh boy, potty training! Such a fun time. :) People kept telling me over and over, "Oh it's SO fun potty training a boy," (followed by eye rolling). But Spencer totally surprised me and was totally potty trained about 2 1/2. Now, that's not to say he didn't have his difficulties. But it went a lot more smoothly than I thought! Dean can totally do it, he's a smart kiddo!

Celia Marie (W.) B. said...

Oh, yeah. He'll get it by then. We still have nearly a full year before he's 2 1/2! I'm just using that as a reference date so I'm happy if he's trained earlier than that.

Amanda said...

i would give him a good 3-4 months after baby is born to really get serious about anything. nothing is worse than a toddler regressing in potty training while you are nursing all day and not sleeping all night.