James enjoying a good book on his potty in February 2009.
We have had quite a journey since January. It all started when Jordan told me about a post from our friends' blog. Our friend was beginning to potty train their son at 9 months. She was guided in this pursuit by the book Diaper Free Before 3: The Healthier Way to Toilet Train and Help Your Child Out of Diapers Sooner by Jill M. Lekovic, M.D. I was instantly intrigued because James has a tendency to get really bad diaper rashes even if his diaper is changed immediately. This and only this could have prompted me to pursue potty training so soon...it was not something that I was looking forward to in the least. So, there began our journey. Jordan gave me the book as a Christmas gift. When we returned home from Utah in January we put the methods to the test. James was 9 months old.
The basic methods are thus:
1. Familiarize child with the potty by building potty trips into the routine. Example: When child wakes up, take a trip to the potty. Just before child goes down for a nap, head to the potty. After a meal, go to the potty. Before leaving home on a trip, go to the potty. At first, there may be only one trip per day depending on child's willingness to sit on the potty. It took James about a week or two before we were going before/after naps, after meals, and before/returning from trips. We wouldn't sit long at first, just a minute or two. But soon James grew to love his potty trips. He began to want to sit and read and potty all day long. :) We sometimes have to get really creative in our efforts to persuade him to get off the potty whether he's gone or not after 20 or 30 minutes (when it has become apparent that he just wants to sit on his James-sized chair and read).
2. Child begins to use potty. James caught on pretty quick. I praised him when he happened to use it at first, which led him to realize that he was supposed to potty on the potty. He began regularly using it within two weeks of starting training.
3. Child wears cotton training pants for increasing amounts of time. So far, I have just been happy that James doesn't have diaper rashes anymore, so I haven't moved into this stage yet. But, I will be venturing there soon. James has begun to tell me when he needs to go potty, so I think I'm getting brave enough to work him into cotton underwear. The author says that the the more you use cotton underwear, the faster the child will potty train, since they don't like the feel of wetting themselves without it being whisked away by diapers. I can see this being true. When James when through a potty boycott for a week, I decided to put him in cotton training pants and it cured him of his boycott. But, once he was using the potty again, I ditched the training pants, because I wasn't ready yet.
All in all, our journey has been enjoyable. James has gone through various stages when he has wanted to use it, but then for a week didn't, but he's always come back. His desire to use it now seems to be stronger than ever, so maybe this is a good time to start him in cotton underwear. It has been a time commitment, but it's been positive since we've spent much more time reading than we probably would have otherwise. As with everything else in parenting so far, I've learned that consistency is the key to success. I hope that this will continue to be true as we move into the next stage of potty training.
