Progress On The Potty & What We're Working On Next

After a phone conversation with my mom on Sunday night, I started to wonder if we were kidding ourselves thinking Sebby would get the hang of using the potty at such a young age. She said that of all of us (12) kids, I was trained the earliest at 18 months because I never liked being in soiled diapers and was very self-motivated to get on that potty. The (7) boys in our family took a longer time to be potty trained because they were so interested in and focused on playing that they never wanted to take a break from playing to go to the potty. She was worried that one of my brothers would be going to school in diapers because he took so long to get the hang of it. He was just so focused on playing that he would forget about everything else in the world.

Throughout the day on Sunday, Darren and I wondered if it was worth it to persevere with the training or whether we should give up and go to church, or go to the park or anywhere other than our flat. We decided to stick it out till the end of the day and then re-evaluate. 

I decided that I would continue on Monday and had my first day of solo potty training. I was thankful that the day went by far faster and better than I had imagined. By 11:30am, he'd had his second pee in the potty and had cooperatively dropped everything to run to the potty and pee when I asked him to show me how he could pee. He had fun playing in the kitchen while I cooked a meal for a family in our church who recently had a baby and enjoyed being allowed back into the living room to play with some of his toys. On days 1 and 2 of potty training, he was largely confined to the entryway of our place where there are minimal distractions and it is easy to keep an eye on him. Although he did one poo in his underwear, I was encouraged with his progress and glad we hadn't given up.

Today was our fourth full day of training and it was another encouraging day for us. Sebby took his first big trip out of the house in training pants when he came along to my midwife appointment. We put him on the toilet twice while we were out but he didn't do anything (it was pretty distracting in there with lots of buttons and things to touch). I was so proud of him when we arrived home two hours later to find his clothes dry. As soon as he sat on the potty, he peed there. His diaper was dry when he woke up from his nap and he peed in the potty shortly after waking up. He had a small accident this afternoon but managed to rush to the potty fast enough that most of the pee ended up there. The only disappointment of the day was that he did another poo in his underwear. 

I'm not sure how we can help him learn to get to the potty to poo but that's something that we still need to work on a bit more. Any input or advice would be much appreciated.

We also need to start working on teaching him to pee when we're out of the house. We scoffed when we heard of people bringing a potty around with them but now I'm beginning to understand the reasoning behind it. I still think that it's not at all practical for our family (carless people who babywear & walk everywhere) to bring a potty when we go out but I am concerned abut making sure that Sebby is able to use the toilet when we're out. Again, we welcome any feedback and suggestions from other parents who've been there.

This potty training adventure has been a challenge but it has been so rewarding to see Sebby "get it" so quickly. To see him rushing to the potty and sitting down to pee after only a few days of work on it is amazing. I love how after every time he pees, he stands up and says "WOW!" and puts his face down really close to examine the pee in the potty. He's really proud of himself too.