How we Got Started

Here is what getting started on this whole potty training journey has looked like for us. (For some background and goals, scroll all the way down)

First of all, I bought the Baby Bjorn Little Potty. I chose this potty seat for a few reasons.
1) In order to eliminate, a child needs to have both feet flat on the floor. It has to do with the fact that if their feet are dangling, then their stomach is tightened and they can't relax enough to let anything out. Most potty seats in stores right now are too high for these little guys and they sometimes have a hard time getting on them without help.
2) It's one piece of plastic!! Most potty seats out there have lids, and sliding 'pots', and all sorts of cracks and crevices to keep and trap old urine - yuck! This is so simple to clean! I also bought a box of paper coffee pot liners to put in there for when he poops! Works like a charm!
3) The price was right! For the price of some of the singing and clapping potties, I was able to buy 3 Little Potty seats on Amazon! One for each floor of the house, and then eventually, one will stay in the car.

The Timeline

When Evan was 12 months old I started keeping the potty seat in the bathroom and having him sit on it fully clothed whenever I would use the bathroom. I talked about what I was doing and pretty soon, he knew that when we went into the bathroom, he sat down on his potty, too. I did this so that he would not only get used to seeing the potty, but also sitting on it.

When he was 13 months old, I started sitting him on the potty at night before bed with no diaper. We started off with staying seated for maybe a minute or two at a time and then he would want to get up. After about a month of being consistent with him and not forcing him to sit, but just encouraging him to stay there (we would sing, read books, play peek-a-boo) we were sitting on the potty for up to 20 minutes before bed. We didn't have our first success until he was about 14 and half months.

So it was 6 weeks of sitting with nothing coming out, but it was so worth it. For the last 2 months, he has pretty much gone on the potty 6 out of every 7 nights. There are times where we have 3 nights go by with nothing, but that's no big deal. At first, it would take 10 minutes to get anything out. We're at the point now where I can tell him that we're going to go up stairs (2 flights) and go pee and he holds it until we get there and then he sits and pushes and out comes the pee! It's amazing what they know to do. The nights where this doesn't happen are days when he hasn't had enough to drink, or hasn't had anything to drink the last 2 hours, or the bathtub is running and he's really distracted. We don't reward him, either, for going. Not in the tangible sense that is. Being so young, he still thrives off of doing what we want, and us being happy about it. (A plus of starting young) So we clap and and say 'yay!' and give him a high five. We dump the pee in the big toilet and let him flush it down and say 'bye bye'.

Now that we're at the 17 month point, I am going to start on the pooping aspect of training. He is very aware of when he poops and since he strains and grunts, it's easy to spot, too. I know he is aware of it because he'll come to me after he poops and I'll ask him "Did you poop?" and he he'll point to his diaper and say something that to him must sound like 'poop'. So this next month my goal is to catch him when he starts to grunt or strain and put him strait on the potty. Like I mentioned before, I bought little paper coffee maker filters that fit inside the potty perfectly. The few times he's pooped in the potty, it has made clean-up so much easier!

I also chose 18 months to start the hard-core potty training (ie: locking myself in the house for 2 weeks and sitting him on the potty every hour on the hour type deal) because he turns 18 months right after the New Year and I didn't want to have to deal with all the holiday hub-bub on top of keeping track of his potty training. Do what's best for you and your family. If you're going on a family trip, wait til you get back! If you're on the fence, but your child shows that he's ready and you have 2 weeks with nothing to do, just get started! I will be posting daily when we start that part of the process.

Things you'll need to get started.
A potty seat - preferably one that sits close to the ground
Little underwear - I bought Hanes 2T cotton underpants and just washed them in hot water and shrunk them (my guy is still on the little side of things). I chose Hanes, though, because they were shorter (length from waist to bottom of crotch area) by about 2 inches than the Fruit of the Loom kind.
Plastic covers - this is so that when your child is in the hard core potty training process, you're not stuck having to clean up all the accidents, or at least not to the extent if you didn't have them!
Patience - Kindness - Gentleness - Consistency - Someone to relieve you when you want to pull your hair out

I know this all may sound like a lot of work, but really, what is 15 minutes added into their bedtime routine to get things rolling? Just make it fun for them and they'll want to do it because you do it! Good luck!