Preschool Potty

18 mos old.

Julia took about two weeks but int he last two days she's gotten to where she's in the same diaper all day at preschool. The first week was adjusting to hanging out at preschool while I was working. The second week was figuring out where things are kept at school, namely the bathroom.

She's been hissing her "Ssssssshhh!" cue, taking her diaper off, and running to find me or find the toilet. Not perfect, since we've had a few near misses where she starts peeing in front of the toilet (it's too tall for her to sit on by herself) but it is all mostly going in the toilet.

So now it's a question of keeping an eye on Julia because if nobody is hand to help her she'll walk around naked kind of desparate. Liz, her preschool teacher, told me she was so surprised when she first met us and I told her Julia was potty training already because she'd never hear of IPT or EC but after seeing it she was amazed. Then she told me how every parent she meets opens her mind to some new idea about parenting and it's always a pleasant surprise.

Last night we went to open mic at church and I had to take her to the bathroom. The lady in the next stall overheard me talking to Julia. ("Ok, try to peepee....SSsssss... very good! You put peepee in the potty where it goes!") and exclaimed, "18 mos old and already going in the potty! Wow! She's so smart!"

Julia looked surprised to hear a voice from nowhere and said, "Wow!"

It's so funny -- we used to get confused looks in bathroom when Julia was very small and people overheard us peeing her into a toilet, then after she became a walker people just assume she's small for her age and that she's so clever and potty business. I keep wondering if we'll ever bump into another EC/IPT type in a bathroom before Julia's toilet training is fully completed.

Funny

The potty pause is still ongoing, but Julia's vocab and teeth are coming in at a rate that I find hard to keep up with.

Julia managed to embarass some poor man in a public bathroom when Paul took her to pay a potty visit yesterday when we went out to eat. Paul told me about it later.

At home we praise Julia when she makes it on the potty. You know... a little cheer of "Yay! You put peepee/poopoo in the potty where it goes!" or similar.

So Paul takes her to the bathroom and there's someone in the other stall making a really loud #2. Julia hears this happening, applauds, and shouts out "Yaaaaay!"

The mystery man probably feels embarassed and starts to try to disguise the sound of his pooping by flushing the toilet periodically. Doesn't help, because Julia continues to applaud and cheer him on.

I asked Paul what he said to the man and Paul said he said absolutely nothing and tried not to laugh.

Potty Pause

We've hit our first lengthy potty pause.

Julia's experimenting with how long she can hold it before she can't hold any more. She's also very distracted because I've been very busy in the last two weeks with volunteer work and she's in different environments. Add the fascination of emptying the potty into the toilet whether or not it actually needs emptying and things around here are wacky.

VERy into "dia-doh" though.We try to get her to say"Dia-PER" but she insists it is "dia-DOH."

Points out diapers from the laundry, on other babies in daycare/preschool and yesterday she found the stack of diapers at the changing station at school and started running off with them, laying them on the ground, saying "off!" while trying to take her pants off and trying to sit in the diaper on the floor to put them on.

She does that at home too -- wanting to take off and try on new diapers.

Julai peed in her purple diaper the other day, got it half off her body and came running to me with a clean one yelling "Dia-Doh! Dia-Doh!" wanting me to change her to a fresh one.

Baby Gates and Towels

Julia is mystified with the new baby gates. Came to stare at me in the kitchen and started hissing at me to tell me she had to go poo. Now that she can open the fridge we put gates up to keep her out.

She thinks all remotely round food is "apple." She's already gone in there to put fang marks in grapefruit and was after an onion the other time. So... def. baby gates. Can't have her sampling all the produce at random searching for the elusive apple!

Seems happy with her potty performances. Uses a potty, stands up to look inside, claps, points, and last night took her potty bucket to Daddy and announced "See? See?" He duly admired her pee and pleased, she walked off to fling it into the toilet and tried to flush it away.

I'm not ready to trust her yet with this so I always follow to make sure she carries the potty bucket upright.

She's got the hand washing idea down. Stands by the side of the tub waiting for someone to turn the tub faucet on for her.

But she doesn't want any other towel than the towel on the rack by the door. If there's no towel, she gets upset. I try to point out other towels in the bathroom liek on the rack by the window or her baby towel on her doorknob. While Julia nods and agrees they are towels, she only wants to use a towel if it is on the rack by the door.

Weirdo.

Funny one -- had her in panties in the afternoon. She was playing, started to pee in her panties, grabbed her crotch and shouted "Uh oh!" and ran off to find her bedroom potty. Finished the pee in there. Panties got all wet, but that's ok.

She's still trying to sort out the problem of taking her panties off by herself.

That "Uh oh!" was priceless though. Ha.

Vacation in Cloth

One week vacation and we made it in cloth. 12 hr drive up, our stay, and 12 hr drive back. On the drive up she was mega-teethy and the excess saliva gave her the runs so she had to go a lot and we had a lot of mises. But the three teeth popped out on vacation, she stopepd the crazy drool, and on the drive back? We made it home in the SAME DIAPER!

I wasn't sure how it was going to work out on travel so I brought 12 fitteds for the driving days and something like 24-36 CPFS for other times. I also brought 10 covers. Overkill, but better overkill than to have to buy disposables.

Toddler Training

I haven't handled another baby for potty stuff other than Julia. Julia and I have had months to work on our potty skills so it was a real change to start with a baby who is a blank slate.

Baby sat our 1 yr old niece today. She hasn't really started potty training yet but while with us we tried to do the same as with Julia since she kept following Julia to the bathroom when Julia would go.

Checked/changed our niece's diapers often to keep her super dry and tried to understand her body language to get her on the potty. I knew she was going -- that spaced out look -- I just wasn't quick enough to get a catch though. Much like when I was first starting with Julia... lots of misses while learning her body language.

I did use our smallest potty since I figured that would be easiest. My niece was totally distracted, not used to it, wanting to get up and wander around, look at Julia over on the toddler ring insert who was peeing with Paul's help, etc. It's been so long that we had to have potty toys for distraction that I simply forgot to offer our niece one to get her to sit a little bit. She's also very strong. Kept scrooching the potty around on the floor with her legs playing.

Julia's also strong but he doesn't doesn't fight it like our niece because she already knows what's expected of her -- go if she had to go and say "done!" if she doesn't.

Now that I got a little taste of it on the toddler side... what it would be like to go through the first steps to toilet training with an active, distractible, stronger, more willfull baby... I can appreciate more what the toddler parents go through to teach it.

And we're more convinced that EC is the way to go and will be doing it from birth with our second child. It's waaaaay easier!

Emptying by herself!

Guess what? This weekend will be a year since we started with the elimination communication/infant potty training thing.

Guess what else? Today I was folding clean clothes on Julia's bed with Julia running around the floor playing naked before her bath.

I went to take a stack of my shirts to my closet and when I came back I found Julia walking from her room to the bathroom holding the red potty and it had pee in it.

!!!!!!

While I was gone in those few moments, she decided to take a pee, put it in the potty neatly, picked up the potty without spilling, and was in the middle of carefully walking to the green bathroom to try to pour the contents of the potty into the regular toilet like she's seen me do a zillion times. Imagine! Going to empty the potty by herself!

I have a feeling that as soon as Julia figures out how to cope with her clothign fastenings (buckles, snaps, buttons, etc.) I'm going to have a potty graduate.

I'm so excited! :)

15.5 mos Old

Not quite 15.5 mos.

Down to 2 cloth diapers in pack, and really not needed for her. More for ME and my peace of mind. Not sure when my confidence for panties only out and about town will be but we sometimes try it.

She is carrying the potty around the house, taking herself to potty at home and at my parents', and cueing very clearly about wanting to go if potty is not available.

Can't tell the difference between the urge to pee or poo, but knows they both go in the potty. She recognizes pee and poo as objects in the potty but calls them both "pee" and "poo." Don't knwo when she will call pee "pee" and poo "poo
correctly. Don't really care about that... I'm satisfied they are both going inthe potty. More like an observation.

Got confused about a fart this week. Ran around frantic convinced she had to poo, sat on the potty, let a big ol' fart rip, jumped up to look int he potty and with a perplexed look held her arms out in the "Where did it go?" shrug and turned to me for explanation. Pointed and said "Poo?" Very amusing to try to explain that there was no poo there because she didn't make one.

Tonight she took herself to potty in the blue potty with a potty bucket insert. She peed, got up to inspect results, clapped when found pee in bucket, then tried to take the bucket to empty into the bathroom toilet as she's seen me do. Had to follow her to make sure she wasn't going to spill pee around, but very pleased she's trying to pour it to the toilet herself. That's a new one.

Started hissing LOUDER today from the crib so I could actually hear her that time. Another new one.

She's figured out how to put panties back on, although she often gets both legs in the same hole. Still needs help pulling them down past her butt. Perhaps looser panties would help?

Has trouble realizing she needs to hike dress up to potty -- sometimes accidentally pees on back of dress because she sat on it.

So... more practice with panties and other clothing.

Chugging right along.... :)