Pre Potty Training.

I by no means think I'm a potty training expert but so far Claire is doing really well. I want to document it for myself and in case this helps anyone else. :) I also am under no illusion that Claire doing well is solely because of me and what I've done. I'll still try this method with my next kid but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't work as well. But never hurts to try!!

So last December I got some more hand me downs from my amazing sister-in-law which included a potty. We went ahead and put it in the downstairs bathroom. When Claire would inevitably follow me in there when I was doing my business, I would explain to her what I was doing and show her her potty.

One day toward the beginning of January we didn't have anything to do so I decided to try having Claire sit on it and see what happens. (18 months at the time) She sat there for 25sh minutes watching Baby Einsteins and of course nothing happened. Eh. No big deal. A couple days later I decided to try again. She sat there and watched her cartoon and after 20 minutes, I checked and she had peed!! So we jumped up and down and made a big deal out of it. I then began to show her the routine. She wiped, we dumped it in the big toilet, she flushes, then wash hands. 

Since she was still young, we would only go to the potty every now and then. If she seemed interested in it, and we had time, then she would sit and go around 75% of the time. I do think part of it was that she realized she got to play on my iPad when she was on the potty. :) Most of the time when Claire says "pee pee" she follows it up with "iPad?"

I don't remember when she first pooped but my best guess would be toward the end of February. She told me she wanted to go and when I checked the potty, I was in for a surprise! At the beginning of March, we started added a treat (fruit snacks). So now "pee pee" is followed by "treat?". 

She is getting better at telling me when she wants to go. It is by no means consistent but recently we had a day where 3 times, she told me she needed to go, had a dry diaper, and went within 5 minutes. She has also started telling us when she needs to poop and we run her to the potty and she will go! Again, none of this is consistent. She still goes in her diaper most of the time. Sometimes she will sit there and do nothing. But I think its pretty darn good for no formal training. So far it has mainly been about exposing her to the potty and helping her understand what she is supposed to do on it. 

I'm hoping that this pre-training will help the real training to go smoothly. I plan on trying the boot camp method with her towards the end of this month (April). She will be around 22 months. I will try and take better notes so my blog can be a bit more specific for you guys. Wish me luck!!