I once made a comment to a friend that I would only consider potty training after I got Nicky off the boob and in his own room. One thing at a time and all. My big boy is in his own room but it looks like I will have him potty trained long before I have him off the boob. Life has a habit of rearranging my plans. But the “potty training” we are doing is a very gradual process. I can’t say I am one of those moms who do it in three days or two weeks – I think this going to be an ongoing lesson we are going to be doing as my son is ready for each step.
I have also assembled potty training gear as an on going project.
1) My first item was this cute potty. I was in Ackermans returning random items and I saw it was only R20. This was still when he was a little baby. I love this potty because it has a bunny (me) and a bear (DH & Nicky) on it. Perfect for our family.
2) I got the toilet seat cover and little step from West Pack. He used to use the step to climb on the bed but now he is able to pull himself up.
3) This potty training book explains the whole story. I got it from Baby City but I think it is at a lot of bookshops as well. It explains how they bought the potty items and underpants and how big boys wear underpants and go on the potty. I like the way they also say how accidents happen and are okay.
How things have been progressing:
For a while I had noticed that every time Nicky got into the bath, he peed. This really annoyed me, especially since I have often mostly been sharing the bath with him, and have no desire to clean myself in his pee. So I started putting him on the potty straight after pulling off his pants before bath time. At first it was rather hit and miss, but now he normally pees every time. Sometimes he laughs and pees both in the potty and the bath (enjoying the experience of standing and peeing) but to me this is not so crucial as he is practicing for the adult man stance of relieving himself.
Encouraged by this one Friday when we were doing our shopping I got him some underpants. He loves cars so of course he loves those underpants. We read the book and I explained about the underpants. The next day he peed in his potty and slept in his underpants for his afternoon nap. But after that we kind of went backwards. I would ask if he wanted to use the potty with me and he said no.
Another thing I have been practicing is going to the toilet first thing in the morning. This way his night nappy and his morning nappy are often dry. But I can’t seem to catch him yet before he poops. He seems to have no problem in mounting his scooter with a nappy full of poop, shaking his head and waving his hand “Ai! Ai!” (Nicky’s way of saying “Bye!”) to indicate that I must go away.
I guess he is at heart a dirty little boy and this process is probably going to take a while…
I’d be curious to know if anyone else has followed this gradual approach, or it works better to do it later quickly?
I tried to do the three day method various times with my youngest, but ended up doing more of a gradual thing in the end. Just because he was so resistant with going full on.
I think that each child is different. With Fjord he was about 26 months old, I decided to get about 10 little cheap toys and wrap each one. Every time he went to the potty he opened one. He was potty trained in a week and dry at nights after a month. With Acacia I didn’t get around to doing the presents and we just did it when she seemed to be ready. She took much longer to be dry at night.
I think each child has their own time and rhythm – but what I have found very useful is to leave them sleeping with a nappy always until they have awake time well under control. The asleep brain in a child takes longer to register than awake. I had them long off daytime nappies until they slept dry and knew to immediately go when they woke up. And not a single one of the 3 have ever had bedwetting issues at all.