pee-pee, changing table, diaper interest... in a 22mo

[JordanKX]

For the past two days, DS (22mo) has been interested in his diapers. He points to the changing table... he alerts me that he needs "something." It's often been that his diaper is full, although not heavy, and when I go to put a new diaper on, he doesn't want it.

But 20 minutes later, he says pee-pee, and points to the table again, and wants me to put a diaper on.

Um, this seems a pretty clear indication that he's becoming aware of his need to pee.

My only confusion is.. he has yet to discover his physical pee-pee. Whether his big belly or what, he's never pulled, found, tugged on, nada, his pee-pee. EVER. So I'm thinking... "pee-pee" means ACTUAL Pee. Not his physical self. He doesn't have any diaper rash or something that would be "owie-pee-pee".

Is this too early for him to be aware of his need to pee?

I want to embrace this! I don't know quite how to. The past two days were weekend with me at home, so I just rolled with it. He was naked a lot and never had an accident on the floor - because he came to me asking. But tomorrow he's back at daycare. I imagine I'll bring it up, but it's not like he'll be doing naked time at daycare.

I would love nothing more than to start bringing out the potty and actually doing something. But I figured he was too young - he's not even 2! So I don't want to jump the gun. Maybe he's just enjoying some naked time, and I'm happy to leave it at that too.

What do you think?

[Lillitu]

My son is only 17 months and he knows when he is peeing or pooping and just afterwards. He totally tells us when it has happened. we also have a potty chair out for him to sit on when he chooses. We are not pushing anything. He loves his two potty training books and says "pee pee", "poopy", and he knows what his penis is and what it is called.

We tell him when we are leaving the room to go potty and he is interested. I would say if he is showing interest, engage him on that interest. What's the harm?

[lifeguard]

Ds was out of diapers full time at 22 months. It's totally doable & they don't have to be terrifically verbal. I don't know how it would work with daycare - that will be something you will have to work out with them.

We started out putting ds on the toilet (with a seat reducer) at about 15 months after naps & in the morning 'cause I had noticed he was generally dry after the naps & had big pees shortly after waking up; so when we decided to get rid of diapers he was already a little familiar with the toilet.

I followed a 3-day plan, but it most definitely took longer than 3 days. Basically the premise was to switch to underwear full time (so make a real committment to it) & be aware. We never asked him if he needed to go but reminded him many, many times a day to tell us if he needed to go. The first week there were a LOT of accidents & I thought about giving up but once he got the idea of how to hold it a bit more he went from peeing 20+ times a day to 6-10 times a day.

We complicated things a bit because we only had one toilet & it was upstairs (& with the animals a potty just didn't seem a good idea) but that just meant extra exercise for me to run him up the stairs each time.

For accidents we simply acknowledged it, reminded him we pee on the toilet & brought him straight to the toilet (although usually it was done already) & then put on dry undies.

We also did a sticker chart where he got a sticker for every success on the toilet - he really liked that. There was no reward involved - just the fun of putting on a sticker.

For us, within a couple days of starting pling he refused his nighttime diaper. I wasn't so sure we were ready but he was putting up such a fuss I figured I just deal with the sheets if need be. We never looked back. He was already dry overnight about half the time so I shouldn't have been so surprised.