Early thoughts on potty training

So today out of the blue during lunch, Nathan pauses mid-bite and says to me “poo-poo”. Now he’s learnt how to say “poo-poo” for a while now to tell me when he’d done a poo. So I get up to sniff his bum and peek inside his nappy. No poo.

After a minute or so, he paused and called out “poo-poo” again – a little more earnestly this time. But after another check, still no sign of poo. I was a little puzzled. Then on a whim, I decided to whisk out the potty set I had and plonk him down on it.

He was midway through a poo as I plonked him down, but he managed to make a small deposit successfully.

I cheered and hoorayed enthusiastically after he finished and let him examine his poo afterwards. He was extremely fascinated with it.

My potty training attempts have been fairly erratic over the past few months since I got this potty set. I had read up on early potty training methods, but always found it challenging to make Nathan sit still in the potty whilst waiting for something to happen.

I decided not to force it and just see how things went. It would be pretty stressful constantly hovering over my child and nagging him if he needs to use the potty – especially if he has no inkling of what on earth I’m talking about.

I once read a quote that said “…in the long run, it doesn’t matter if they are toilet trained at 6 months or 3 years… eventually they will be trained”. Maybe he’s ready now or will be soon. In any case, I’ll take it one step at a time and let him learn at his own pace.

I might wait until the weather turns warmer so he can run around in plain underwear and won’t have to fiddle around with long trousers/pants and layers of clothing. Plus managing the increase in laundry (due to accidents) would be less of a hassle in sunny weather.

In the meantime, I’ll be reading up and getting all geared up for the plunge. If you have any thoughts or tips on the whens and hows, do share!

Some interesting articles I’ve found on toilet training:
http://toilettraining4toddlers.blogspot.com.au/
http://www.littlellamas.com/2009/08/potty-training-101.html
http://www.memoriesoncloverlane.com/search/label/Potty%20Training