Potty training

 I feel like I know very little about potty training and I’m just winging it.

I had a friend who did “elimination communication” with her baby, and I read about African women who manage to not get peed on even though the baby on their backs had no diaper.

I thought that sounded pretty cool.

When I had my baby, I had a tough recovery for several weeks. And I realized that balancing my newborn over a potty simply wasn’t going to happen.

But around 6 months old, when she could sit with a little support (think “boppy pillow” or “mommy holding lower back and hips”), we started on the potty again. I found that she consistently peed when she woke up from nighttime or naps. So we just did that. I wasn’t worried about the other times she peed; I just focused on those times I knew would be winners.

I usually murmured “good job” when she pottied on the potty. But I wasn’t overly exuberant. I wanted her to know the potty was a good thing and she was doing it right, but I didn’t want the potty to be a way to impress mommy. I wanted to have the attitude of “of course you’ll go on the potty. That’s what we do.”

As she got older, we used the potty more and more. Some weeks I caught every single poop on the potty. Some weeks, I didn’t catch any. 

At this point, she has never taken her own diaper off, so I wasn’t in a hurry to take potty training to the next level.

But you know what?

She was.

All of the sudden, she decided she wanted to go potty more often. She yells, “potty! Potty! Potty! Potty!” And the two of us rush to the nearest bathroom.

No fighting. No bribing. No initiative on my part.

How easy was that!

Downsides: 

• she still sometimes pees in her diaper. I’m not too worried about that. She’s already catching more of them in the potty than she was a month ago. We’ll get there.
• I have to stop and run every single time. Sometimes that’s hard.
• Sometimes she doesn’t actually need to potty. She simply wants to enjoy the delights of sitting in the potty (fun new seat, more of mommy’s attention, a pretty shower curtain to admire, etc). Which is exasperating when I drop and run for nothing. But I try not to make a big deal of that either — it won’t last forever.

I did figure out one really helpful thing about night-time. I will take her to the potty at night if she requests it…

But…

Don’t Turn the Lights On!

I have a nightlight in the bathroom that is just bright enough to find the potty. I say little or nothing. I make very little eye contact. I set her on the potty and wait for her to finish. Any more stimulation than that turns the potty trip into a way to stay up all night.

I also don’t rush her. At first, I was so eager to get back to bed that I kept asking “are you done yet?” That was s bad idea because…

• I was getting more irritated with each delay
• She was getting more stimulated by my frequent questions
• She was enjoying experimenting with different answers to explore different reactions from me
• When I did manage to rush her back to bed, I felt guilty for rushing her when she asked to go back to the potty two seconds later. On the other hand, when I let her initiate the desire to return to bed, I can also confidently say “all done potty, go to sleep now” when I know she’s actually done.

So…for a mommy who’s just winging this whole thing, I’m really really pleased with the progress. Check back in another six months to see how it turns out in the end!