Potty Training - Day Whatever

Not sure why I was numbering those posts.  I have no idea what day we are in.  I do know it has been over a week and I have changed only two poopy diapers.  Once, I knew he was going but thought it was too late.  I then went to change him immediately when I thought he was done and found that he wasn't!  So I hurried him to the potty.  Which was delightful, as I then had to both empty the poo from the potty AND dump/spray a diaper.  The worst of both worlds, eh?  The second time, I wasn't watching him (as in, I was elsewhere and someone else was watching him who did not know the signs).  That time, it was also someone else who changed the diaper, so technically I have only changed 1but there have been 2.

He is starting to understand the ASL sign for potty, which may or may not be the real ASL sign.  Someone I spoke with today showed me what she believes if the correct sign.  However, we do not employ daycare or anything like that so it is really only our family that needs to know the sign so we are going to use the one we started, which is almost the same anyway.  At any rate, he looks toward his potty when I sign and ask if he wants to sit on it.

Since we have been having trouble finding signals that he is going to soon pee, we are concentrating on #2 ont he potty for now.  I feel like by the time he does learn the sign and associate eliminating with the potty and then use the sign to tell me he needs to use the potty, etc., he will start to associate urinating with all of that as well.  He DOES however still look down at his boy parts area whenever he pees, diaper or no, so I suspect that just having this diaper-free time has been helpful in learning to recognize the sensations.

Another small update - this morning, he sat down on his potty (fully diapered and jammied) and played with a toy for a minute or so before getting up.  So I think he is getting more comfortable with the potty in general.  I also think it may be somewhat novel for him to have a seat other than his high chair/booster or sitting on a couch or chair with an adult.

My expectations?  I think that over the next 4-6 months he will slowly learn to make these associations and let me know when he needs to use the potty.  I expect that by the time he turns 2, he should be using the potty and hopefully out of diapers at least most of the time - although I am not holding out hopes that he will be completely out of training pants.  When we are ready for trainers, I'll stick with cloth of course.

I'm thinking that once he is signing or vocalizing his need to eliminate, he can switch to trainers.  This way, we can bypass the fancier pocket trainers that are, ultimately, just a diaper that pulls on and off and go right to something that isn't waterproof at home and maybe some that are when we go out.

I've also read that a lot of kids respond well to a system of having to go back into a diaper if they wet their training pants.  The extra incentive sounds effective and not at all cruel.  Boogie is not in love with wearing anything, let alone a diaper, so I suspect that this method will work well for him!


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