Taking herself to the closet

[sgmom]

I'm curious how you all would handle this.

A few months ago, my daughter had a habit of going into our hallway closet (the floor is empty - hardwood) to pee. Open door, enter closet, close door, pee.

We had put the bathroom potty (BBPC) is there for a while and she would often go inside to use it. Since then though, we've had great success with offering and cueing, and she stopped using the closet so we put the potty back in the bathroom.

Over the past couple weeks though, she's started this closet peeing habit again, and now I'm wondering if I should put the potty back there. She's 19 months old.

While I like the idea of giving her her own private potty area (and more so, I love that she's taking herself to pee), I would rather teach her to use a more appropriate place to eliminate. Even if it's in her BBLP that we keep in the living room.

Thoughts?

[emmaegbert]

first of all, this is hilarious! you will be laughing about this some day (if you aren't now).

You are more experienced w/ EC than I am (I am just a part-timer for the past 10m, and didn't do it w/ my first)... but I'd personally put a potty in there if its where she likes to go (assuming she'll use the potty as long as its there?). And tell her, she can bring the potty out whenever she wants to. Or, when you are carrying her potty to the toilet, you can sometimes say, "some day, when you are a bigger girl, you will go pee in the bathroom, just like the rest of the family" or whatever. Like you would (well, like I would anyway) with a kid eliminating in a diaper.

[sapphire_chan]

I like emma's idea. Another thing I'd try if you need the space in the closet is putting a lock on the closet and arranging the living room furniture so the potty is more private, maybe even getting a screen or something.

[sgmom]

Hmmm... Maybe I'll just put it back in there now. I think it's that I feel that she's old enough to know that closets are for hanging jackets, not to be used as a bathroom. But she's obviously looking for some privacy...

I'll try this again and see what happens.

BTW. I don't DARE carry her potty to the toilet. She does that all by herself. I have to help her dump it, but she's a big girl now, you know... lol

[Heidi74]

I don't have any advice for you, but I can tell you that my DS1 used to do something similar when he was about 20-23 months old...around the time we started potty training. (We didn't really do EC with him--well, only very occasionally when he was a baby.)

He would go into our bedroom closet every time he needed to poop, and would stand there and poop in his diaper. Then, he would come out and ask to be changed. I tried putting the potty in there, but he was too attached to diapers.

So, it was a similar thing. We thought it was hilarious at the time.