Haha, conversation definitely wasn't our strategy. I read a book on EC (Elimination Communication) when I was pregnant out of curiosity. I didn't feel like I wanted to be all gung ho about it, but there were a couple things that stuck with me. I bought a little potty during an ikea trip on a whim, it was only a few dollars and I thought I might want to try it out. When ds was around 3 months and we were really getting settled into our routine, I noticed he always pooped right after his morning feed, and I found myself just sitting in bed with him, waiting for him to poop so I could change him out of his night diaper. I decided that was dumb, and if I knew he was going to go, I might as well let him do it on the potty. So after that, I'd give him his wake up feed, and as soon as he started the warning toots, I sat him (with lots of support at first, obviously) on the little ikea potty and let him do his business there. He still pooped a few times a day at first, and I never bothered trying to catch any others besides first thing in the morning.
By about 5 or 6 months he had pretty much gone down to once a day poops, always in the morning. We went through a brief spell with a little diarrhea, that led to him pooping several times a day again for a week or two, but I didn't fuss with trying to get those in the potty much. I didn't worry about him wetting his diapers at all, I looked for cues from him that he had to pee, but I could never tell. Around 9 months old I realized that he would always pee after waking from his naps, so we went to 3 potty times a day. He stopped being so regular when he was around 1, so if he didn't poop in the morning I'd watch him closely to try and catch it later in the day. By about 17 or 18 months he started asking to go potty occasionally, especially if he had to poop. I didn't start real potty training until about 22 months. I probably could have done it sooner, but I was scared! And I wanted to wait until I was done with school for the summer so we could really focus on it. He was so used to the potty by then, the switch to underpants went fairly smoothly, and really only took about a month. That was a year ago now, and he still has accidents here and there, because he's at the age that he really resists me reminding him when it's time to go potty, but they usually aren't more than little leaks. We are struggling with night time bed wetting right now though. Partially my fault I think, because I was too chicken to get him out of the night diapers when he was really doing well with it, and his night time abilities really regressed until I finally took a deep breath and nixed the diapers all together.
I am definitely planning on doing the light EC again this time around, it was fun, it lightened the laundry load a bit, and I really appreciated the easy/early potty training!
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