That's right my friend...POTTY TRAINING!! Those two words strike fear in me! I am super motivated though. Trust me, big boy poops are getting nastier by the day. He eats big people food and makes big people poops! Sorry, is that TMI?! What has me so motivated you ask? (You did ask, right?) I will tell you...Saturday I was at a dinner with about 35 other moms. We are all a part of a mom's group called Mother's and More. (It is a national organization, so all you moms out there should see if there is a chapter in your area. It is wonderful!) Anyway, one of the other moms was telling our table that there is this magical window between 18-24 months that your toddler will be very receptive to the idea of potty training. If you miss this window, it is likely they won't be interested in it until closer to age 3. She said she read it somewhere, but has no idea where so maybe it is just made up. But, she has two boys. One that was potty trained before age two (he is now 5) and one who is almost 3 and refuses to even look at the potty. Hey, I am willing to give it a try. Before potty training success can happen a few things need to be in place. First, Lucas has to have some sort of bowel/bladder control. He by no means wakes up dry in the mornings, but he seems to have pretty good bladder control during the day. He often has a dry diaper during the day, thus a decrease in diaper changes. Also, we can tell when he is pooping as he stops whatever he is doing and grunts and groans. They say the average age of sphincter control is age 18 months. Secondly, Lucas needs a way to communicate with us that he indeed has to go potty. Over the weekend I began asking Lucas if he was pooping when he obviously was. Several times he reacted to my question by patting his diaper area. I am making it a point to always use the words "potty" and "poopie" when changing his diaper. I am also introducing the sign for "potty" or "toilet" to him. Since he is only 16 months old, I plan to keep reinforcing the words with his actions and teaching him the sign so that by 18 months he will understand and we can introduce the potty chair & begin actual potty training. If he is absolutely not interested at all when we start this at 18 months I am definitely not going to force it. I think it is definitely worth a shot and I don't think it is impossible. Although, it would be nice to send him to potty training boot camp. Hopefully, this potty training stuff will be easier then I anticipate...maybe not! I will keep you posted! (I am sure you are thrilled!)
PS- I am totally open to any advice, tips, words of encouragement, etc. Just leave me a comment!
4 comments:
You go girl!!! :-) I, too, was terrified of potty training (still am, to tell you the truth!)! Riley was interested for a bit when she was in that magical 'window.' But perhaps we didn't encourage her enough, because she was over 3 before she was fully trained.
My advice is to try not to get frustrated (and it will be hard, because you will want to be frustrated!). My mom gave me the best advice when I felt like Riley would never poop in the potty. She said, "Reagan, Riley won't go to kindergarten pooping her pants, so there is no reason to stress out about it." And she was right. Riley potty trained on her own terms, not on my terms, but together, we eventually got there! :-)
Good luck! I'm hoping Lucas will catch on quickly, but if not I'm here if you ever need to vent!!
Good luck!
Whew! You're brave! Elijah didn't train until 3.5 and Abbey still isn't trained.
My one piece of advice is...if he doesn't catch on in a couple of days, DROP IT and wait at least a month before picking it up again. I had some friends that were determined to potty train their daughter around Lucas' age and she was not completely day trained until a year and a half later, and even later than that for night.
We let Elijah train himself and it literally happened overnight. He went from diapers to no diapers, not even at night. To me that was much better than dealing with tons of accidents. But if Lucas catches on quickly, then I say more power to ya!
I am definitely not going to push it! If he has no interest then we will shelf the idea until he is. I am all for introducing the idea early, though!
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