switch to 'conventional' potty training?

[defum]

i realize that for some of you this may go against your EC philosophy, but i'd like to put it out there anyhow.  has anyone switched to conventional forms of potty training with their EC'd toddler or have you any thoughts on this?

here's our situation:  ds is 26mo, we've been doing EC with a full-time diaper back-up since 4mo.  we had a short time of communication on his part about a year ago, but since then he's pretty much relied on our timing.  we catch most of the poop and he does pee every time he's on the toilet, which is whenever he gets his diaper changed, but also pees in the nappy between that.  he does usually tells us after he's pooped in the nappy and sometimes while he's peeing but on the whole i think he doesn't really have any interest in letting us know and certainly doesn't seem to mind his wet nappy.  we talk about moving on to undies (gave them a go in the summer but stopped in the winter) and he always says yes but that he wants his nappies for now.   certainly, we can keep going like this and he'll graduate eventually, but i'm wondering if maybe i could give him some more incentive (sticker charts??) or if there's anything else i can do to encourage him. 

any thoughts on this?  i haven't actually researched any forms of potty training, so i'm just sort of putting this out there..

thanks!

[sapphire_chan]

Yeah, I thought about doing one of those stay at home all day feeding my kid tons of liquid so she can learn how it feels when she has to pee things. Never got around to it and she worked it out a month later.

Other than that, conventional potty learning is all about not really doing anything until the kid is ready. So you'd go to just changing diapers all the time.

EC wise, what I"d try next is increasing the amount of times you offer. See if you can catch a few of those in-between pees. Also, see if you can reduce how absorbent his diapers are.

[rachelalfreda]

We ec'd with DS exclusively for the first 4-5 months or so, but when i went back to work he went into diapers.  we always kept the potty around and he would periodically use it and we'd make a big deal about it, lots of praise etc. 

When he was around 2.5 my intuition spoke up one day when I was wiping his bum.  it said, "he's playing you, you know.  he knows the potty and can use it, he's just being lazy."  so I listened and took a week off of work. 

I told him Sunday night, "you are a big boy now.  You know how to use the potty, so we don't need these diapers anymore.  I'm going to throw them away.  does that sound like a plan?"  (this is a catch phrase in our house) and he nodded. Monday morning when he woke up I said, "let's go use the potty!  remember no more diapers!"  and he was all about it. 

We stayed home all week long and he played and had fun, completely naked.  when my intuition said to bring him to the potty I'd ask but not push.  yes, we had accidents, but fewer and fewer as the week passed.  by the end he was 90% trained - meaning, when i had to go back to work he had a few accidents here and there, but it was only when he was completely engrossed in what he was doing (those I blamed on myself or the caretaker, because it's our job to remind him to go potty BEFORE getting engrossed in anything)

I thought about trying stickers etc - but ds is just not that into rewards, he does things on his own time in his own way.  I've always spoken to him like he's a little adult so he was comfortable when I said, "ok, you're too big for diapers now.  it's the potty from now on!" 

I don't know if I had such an easy time of it because my timing was right, or because we had the EC history, or if DS was just ready. 

[defum]

thanks ladies, you have some good ideas!

not using the toilet at all anymore is definitely not an option, it's a fixed part of his routine.  i kind of think he's playing us too, he totally knows what's up, so in conventional potty training terms i think 'he's ready'.   taking a week off sounds like a good idea, but probably isn't feasible at the moment, but making his nappies less absorbent until we can, is so i may give that a go first.  one problem is that he's not very willing to use the toilet more frequently than he does, b/c he just can't be bothered..