Readers who have been faithfully reading my blog for a while may be wondering: what ever happened with the kid I stuck on the potty at 9 months? (She is now 2.5 years old.) Here is a reprise of that potty training experience.
Having read here and there about early potty training, and frustrated with my nearly 3-year-old pooping in his pants, I decide to put my 9-month-old on the toilet first thing in the morning. She poops. The very first time I try. From that point on, she poops more in the toilet than in her diapers. Within a few months, she is only pooping once or twice a month in her diaper. She clearly prefers pooping in the potty to pooping in a diaper. I never bother using liners with her cloth diapers (as I did with my first, to facilitate removing his poop), because she so rarely poops on her diaper. As long as I give her several opportunities during the day, she consistently poops in the potty. It's a beautiful thing.
15 months: Using the potty more than her diapers
My toddler often wakes up dry in the morning and after naps. She usually holds her pee when we are out of the house. When I am putting her on the potty really regularly, she is peeing as many as 5 times a day in the potty, in addition to almost always pooping in the potty. She's using the potty more than her diapers. But I keep putting off putting her in underwear instead of diapers. I decide to wait until she's walking.
18 months: Backsliding due to parental laziness
In the meantime, my in-laws come to stay with us, the holidays happen, and I get lazy. I take her to the potty just often enough to make sure she still poops there, but I make little effort to help her pee in the potty. My toddler doesn't walk consistently until around 18 months, at which point she becomes super active and never wants to sit long on the potty. I wonder why the heck I decided to wait until she could walk to try to finish potty training her.
22 months: Toddler defiance
Now I'm serious about potty training my toddler. I am pregnant and determined not to have two children in diapers at once (as I did when my 2nd was a baby). But my compliant baby has become a defiant toddler. The more I want her to use the potty, the less she does so. We have more pooping accidents than ever before. In the house, I have her wear no undies, and instead of peeing on the potty, she holds it for 6 hours at a time and then has a massive accident on the floor. I get worried she is going to get UTIs and start putting undies on her again just so she'll stop holding it so long.
24 months: And just like that, she's potty trained
Just when I am beginning to regret every moment I've wasted putting this child on the potty, and just when I finally back off/give up on the potty training for a bit, she starts using the potty. It seemed like the day would never come, and then it came. As long as we keep her naked from the waist down, all her business happens in the potty. Hallelujah. She wakes up dry in the morning and after naps almost all of the time, unless it was hours and hours before she fell asleep that she last peed. She refuses to use a potty outside the house, but stays dry as long as we're not gone for more than 4 hours. She just holds it. Like her older brother, she seems to have a bladder of steel. The big down side to this is that eventually she stops falling asleep on the way home from the park and other outings because she is holding it until she can use the potty at home, and this seems to keep her awake. The easy nap is gone. We have two hurdles still to overcome: wearing underwear at home, using a potty outside the house.
26 months: Underwear
My husband and I are getting really tired of our toddler's naked bottom everywhere. We put undies on her and she has a bunch of accidents, so we let her go naked again, and then try undies again a few weeks later. Around 26 months, we try undies for the third time. One day she goes to the bathroom, takes off her underwear by herself, and pees in the potty with absolutely no reminders or encouragement. I feel like we are in the home stretch.
27 months: New baby
We bring home baby #3 from the hospital. Although everyone has warned me about back-sliding (some folks put off potty training until after the new baby), there is no back-sliding. My 2-year-old has a few more #1 accidents than usual because we are paying less attention to her and giving her almost no reminders to use the potty. When she pees in her underwear, we realize she hasn't used the potty for 5 or more hours and we forgot to remind her. Once we get back on track with reminders/encouragement, no accidents.
28 months: Pants
We add pants to the equation. She occasionally has an accident with #1, but for the most part, she is now consistently dry around the clock. We stop using diapers at night and training pants during church and visits to others' homes (she almost never peed in the training pants anyway).
31 months: All by herself
My 2.5-year-old can take off her shoes, pants and underwear by herself to go to the bathroom. She can also put her underwear, pants and shoes on again by herself (sometimes inside-out, sometimes backwards, but who cares as long as I don't have to attempt to do it while holding a sleeping infant). She's also learned to turn on the light (using a stool) in the bathroom by herself. If she cannot get to the potty by herself (she's outside, or the bathroom door is closed, or we are at the park), she tells me she needs to use the potty and holds it until I can get her to one. She will use a potty outside the house, but prefers to just hold it until we get home and usually does. She needs a little help washing her hands. We still give her a treat for using the potty if she asks for one (she often doesn't). She pees on cue before outings. Naps are a thing of the past, but she always stays dry at night.
Reflections
I often look at my 2.5-year-old and think about how many kids her age have not even begun potty training yet. The duration of her potty training was definitely longer than for many of those who choose to wait for signs of "readiness," but I'm not sorry about how I did things. Although there were some rough patches along the way, I am grateful for every poopy diaper I did not have to change. I am thankful that much of her potty training occurred before she became a defiant toddler. I am glad she never had wicked diaper rashes from her poop (as her older brother did). I am happy that from an early age I gave her the chance to poop somewhere besides a diaper. And I am so pleased that I only have one child in diapers.
Now I've got another baby. Am I going to try early potty training again with this one? Yep, I'm starting even earlier this time. Stay tuned for my next post.
To read all about the why and how or early potty training, visit my Early Potty Training page.
To read all about the why and how or early potty training, visit my Early Potty Training page.
That's wonderful! My 7-month old has been mostly pooping in the toilet for a few months now. I'm lazy about the pees and catch only a few a day. But I would be thrilled to have a story like yours in a few years!
ReplyDeleteYou're ahead of where I was at 7 months! So I think your chances are pretty good. But, really, if the poop goes in the potty, well, I think it's all worth it.
DeleteThank you for putting the stages together like this! I'm always interested in how EC works for other people throughout the months, and what I may be able to expect with our own journey. At 18 months we get all poops in the potty - Sometimes I catch him just starting to go or thinking about going, but it's enough that the rare times he does go in his dipe (once every few months) he FREAKS OUT to be changed. Pee is harder but a lot of that is my laziness, coupled with him not wanting to sit still on the potty. Mostly he goes after naps/in the morning but less during the day as it's harder to predict. If we can have him using the potty himself by 2 years I'll be very happy. Maybe it's a little more work but the idea of a 3 year old pooping his pants skeeves me out big time.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! Oh also, getting the seat that goes ON the potty is the best thing EVER, amIright? I cry happy tears when I hear poo plunking into a toilet I don't have to dump and clean by hand!
Yes, isn't it so lovely when pooping in the diaper is an undesirably yucky thing instead of the norm. To tell the truth, I only recently got my 4yo to use the potty seat on the toilet (instead of a smaller potty on the floor), and yes it is lovely. But cleaning a potty always beats wiping the poop off of the kid's bottom. I know it sounds condescending -- but it grosses me out too when a kid as big as my 2yo is pooping in their pants. Those are man-poops, as my brother-in-law says.
DeleteFewer dirty diapers is always a good thing! I'm very impressed you guys stuck with it!
ReplyDeleteWell, you can't really go back. How mean would it be to make my 2yo poop in her diaper after pooping in the potty for months? But I did get lazy with the pee for a while there... It's lovely now to have it all behind me.
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