Monday, October 13, 2008

My Girl Likes to Potty All the Time

Yes, the photo makes The Squeak look like an old hand on the ol’ porcelain plastic throne but photos can be deceiving. She’s really just in it for the book reading.

We started the path to potty training* sort of by accident; we receive a potty as a gift. Rather than force it on Squeaker (the pediatrician said two years is about the time to start, so we’re still four months out), we figured we’d put it in the bathroom and let her ease into it. Figuratively speaking, of course.
*the path of a thousand miles starts with the first pee

A couple of weeks ago, she started pointing at her diaper and saying, “Poopies?”. We’d check and nothing would be there. A few minutes later, there would be a distinct odor.

Putting two and two together (no pun intended), we decided to offer the “potty experience” the next time she gave us a sign.

When the sign came we scooped her up, stripped her down, and sat her on the throne. Squeak wasn’t very interested, standing up every few minutes. So we grabbed a book (one of the great toilet pastimes) and read to her.

And finally, after 10 minutes, we called it quits.

But on the next try, we got gold! Well, yellow really.

And since our first success, we’ve repeated it a few times, even scoring a true poopies.

We’re not hardcore about it. We are trying to build a routine – when we get up in the morning, when we get home from daycare and before bed. If we get results, we applaud and practically put it in a jar for display; and if The Squeaker doesn’t want to sit on the potty, no big deal.

But I won’t lie. It would be nice to not have two in diapers.

6 Comments:

Blogger geenalyn said...

once upon a time i had four kiddos all in diapers at the same time...i used to keep a closet full of the warehouse boxes because we went thru so many lol. When i was back down to only one kid in diapers..there was a massive celebration in my house.

May the squeaker continue to have much success :)

10/13/2008 10:06 PM  
Blogger Childsplayx2 said...

Almost potty trained at 20 months?!

I hate you.

Oh, and don't you think a Sports Illustrated would work better? I mean, it does for me.

10/14/2008 12:06 AM  
Blogger Rob Barron said...

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful...

I wouldn't call it "almost" potty trained; I think "first steps" is a better term.

10/14/2008 6:07 AM  
Blogger Dara Lee said...

I hear ya! We had three in diapers for approximately 18 months and I was so excited to have the first one done. Now the twins are getting into it as well. And I'll agree with you that forcing (in my opinion) does not work. As long as it's available and you help them when they need it, there doesn't seem to be a big struggle over it. They've got to do it when they are ready, not when you are ready (or all of mine would have been potty trained from birth!).
Good luck! It's even more exciting when they go all on their own and you don't have to do a thing!

10/15/2008 10:07 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

She's going to love these pictures when she gets older. You can keep her from dating too early by threatening to show them to any unapproved boyfriends.

10/15/2008 2:52 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How cute. Good luck! That's one thing I don't miss about those years! It's a long road. She could be trained in a few months, or it could be two years! Two rules--have lots of patience, and don't pressure her about it. She'll train when she's ready. Girls usually do train young, though, yay!

10/19/2008 9:55 PM  

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