My dd started telling me that she had to poop (used the potty sign) when she was 16.5 months old. She didn't even start (and by start I mean like once a week) figuring that she had to pee until about 23 months. Figuring out pee completely took until 27 months.
It made sense to me that she could tell about pooping so much faster, because it was always far more easy for me to tell that she had to poop.
My son just turned 18 months and we are on day 9 of a true potty learning experience. Technically, we have been doing part-time EC since he was a month old. Some times often and some times not at all. Like when he would have major milestones (like walking), he would have nothing to do with his potty. But either way, he has known how to use it for a LONG time. For whatever reason, last week I decided to give it more of a concentrated go. I stopped putting his diaper on him. I would usually put his pajama pants on him since they were tighter at the bottom. The pee wouldn't go all over the floor, and he would still get the same sensation.
It has all gone really fantastic. We bought him undies over the weekend and he as worn them all day. Diaper at night and cloth trainers for naps and some outings.
For the most part, it has been all timing and me reminding him. The first couple of days, I would remind him and take him. Then I started to just remind him and only take him if it had been really long or we were out.
Each day he holds it longer and longer in between and he is starting to say, "I pee" more often these past couple of days.
Today he even started doing a "pee pee dance" which is the cutest thing ever. So, I told him he is doing a pee pee dance because he has to go the potty, and I grab him and say, "run" (in a really fun way) and we scurry off to the bathroom. I want him to understand the urgency of that dance. :)
Today he started to pee while I was holding him, but stopped the moment I felt it and said, "oh, your peeing- hold it" and he finished in the potty. This is are first miss/accident in four days, so, I think we are getting close.
I have been writing a blog each day to keep a record of how it all goes.
We are definitely further than I ever expected.
So, my only advice is go for it all the way. Be patient, consistent and just matter of fact. We also have two potties. His old one in our play area, and we recently bought one of the little seats to go on the toilet seat.
I also bribe. I know a lot of other mommies don't, but I found it effective. We keep a box of those little Annie's bunnies (cookies) in the bathroom, and it is truly the only time he ever has cookies. There are times where he pees and wants one, and there are times he pees and just carries on as normal. I usually follow his lead.
I also talk about all of it with him. Do you have to pee? Where do you go pee pee? What do you get when you go pee pee in the potty?
He also gets to flush and likes to say bye bye to his potties and poos. :)
My first daughter I started using elimination communication with at 6 months. She was out of diapers during the day at 17 months and at night at 18 months. My son, we've been doing elimination communication since day one. At almost 13 months, he is out of diapers at home (though we still have misses; gotta love the wood floors, lol!). When we are gone, I potty him right when I get somewhere. If he goes, I'll let him run around without a diaper. If he doesn't, it's a diaper or he can hang out on my back (since he never pees in the carrier). We have bad days where we miss almost half of the pees. We have good days where we might only miss once. He does not sign or say anything to go potty, but about a month ago he started occasionally taking himself to the potty to pee if he was naked butt at home. I don't expect to get done in three days or anything; I'm hoping he's like my daughter and will be done in the next six months. We'll see.
I've been working on it with my 15-month-old. When she's diaper-free, she squats before she pees, so she knows when she's going to go. But if I put her on her potty, she gets off and pees next to it.
My mom had be completely trained at 13 months, and my brother at 16 months. So I'm a bit behind the curve. Oh well. It'll happen.
At 18 months our DS was staying dry through the night. He was also a TERROR to put a diaper on (think two people to hold him down or one person who can restraining him with a leg over his upper body!) So we thought, definitely time to potty train.
Now he's 30 months old and the last 12 months have been hellacious (is that word?). We did cloth diapers so we didn't want to take a step backward by putting him in pull-ups. So we've put him in plain underwear and have a few fancy cloth trainers. With the amount of accidents he sometimes has there's no way we can afford enough cloth trainers. Some days he'll only have 2 or 3 accidents. Other days we'll be changing his clothes 8 or 9 times.
I don't know what we could have done differently seeing as the time was fast approaching when Mommy wouldn't even physically be able to put a diaper on him. But I really really really really wish we had waited. There was even a point where I was worried my stay-at-home DH would get so frustrated/angry/upset on a day with 3 poopy underwear accidents that he'd hurt our son. We got through the worst parts together and have come to emotional acceptance with multiple accidents per day.
We should have waited. Some people can do it earlier, but that wasn't us. And if I could go back in time I would tell myself there's no hurry. 95% of the other 2 years olds out there are still in diapers. I wish mine was one of them.
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We got through the worst parts together and have come to emotional acceptance with multiple accidents per day.
I think, for me, part of what made the process okay is that I'm fine with misses. I let my son run around naked butt all day every day at home. My son pees on the floor just about every day. Occasionally, he poops on the floor. Cleaning up poop off hardwood floors is easier than cleaning it out of a cloth diaper. Cleaning up pee misses on the floor create just as much laundry and work as pee misses in a diaper. Yeah, the misses on our futon or at night on the bed create more laundry than diapering would have, but considering that he mostly uses the potty and sometimes will take himself without me, I'd consider the whole thing in terms of work to be easier than diapering at this point, even with the misses. The only time I get upset about misses are outside of the home. So, if we are going outside of the home, I will put him in a diaper except under circumstances I'm very sure we will not have a miss.
If a year and a half from now, my son still had multiple accidents a day, I would be kind of disappointed, but I wouldn't regret starting early.
My oldest potty trained at about 22 months. I don't recall that he was showing any particular "interest," but we basically woke up one morning and put him in underwear and never went back. He got peeing down right away, but pooping took him a few weeks, then he got it.
My second child saw her dad on the toilet one day at about 19 months and indicated that she wanted to go potty. He took off her pants and got out our potty chair, but she got up pretty quickly. About 10 minutes later, he walked by the potty and saw that she had pooped in it. I don't think she ever pooped anywhere but the potty after that--we put her in underwear from that day on, too, but she did have peeing accidents pretty regularly for a couple weeks, then occasionally for a couple more.
My youngest is 18 months and occasionally asks to go potty--especially if she sees me using the bathroom, she'll start taking her pants off and saying "Potty! Potty!" I'm not ready to all-out train her right now, but I always help her get undressed and on the potty when she asks; she probably actually goes about every other time. I imagine we'll potty train her in the next month or two--I suspect it will mostly just take a few days of hanging out at home with her in undies.
I started ds on the potty at 9 months. He was in underwear all day at 15 months, with a few pullups thrown in for long car rides and whatnot.
We got a potty for dd last week but we were trying to hold off on switching to pullups until she was walking independently. (She will only walk if she is holding onto her toy stroller....idk why, she doesn't need it) Well, she pulled her diaper off and peed on my carpets, so shoot, if I'm going to be cleaning pee out the carpets anyway, we might as well get this show on the road! lol
She peed on the potty twice today. It's pretty slow in the beginning, just getting them used to it, creating a routine around the potty, but right around 14 months it just seemed to click for ds and I'm hoping the same will happen with dd.
Dd sort of initiated it herself. She started asking to go to the potty. So, I decided to go with it. Got her some padded undies for around the house and she has maybe 1 accident a day (at 20 months) if that. If she wasn't showing signs of readiness, I probably wouldn't have pushed it. Ds1 did the same thing, but he was just a week away from his 2nd birthday. Ds2, well, he finally trained at 3! Every child is different.
I just wish dd ws old enough to do it all herself. She doesn't have the gross/fine motor control to do so...
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