So… here’s another old post that got forgotten over the summer. I REALLY want to get better about blogging again, and I wanted to get these drafts published first. Bear with me, friends!
Who hates potty-training? I do! I guess a downside to working with kids prior to actually having kids means you know some of the hard parts before you get to them with your own offspring. Potty-training is one of them for me.
My first experience with potty-training was with a few of the kids with autism that I worked with through WEAP. We approached it step-by-step, with getting used to sitting on the potty first and eventually leading up to a “potty day” where we basically worked hardcore on getting successes on the toilet for a whole day. It took a lot of patience and hard work! Next I worked on potty-training with a few kids when I worked at the Child Development Center in England. These kids were under 2, and I think some were more ready than others. It definitely seemed like girls were more ready than boys in most cases. And that was another reason I was nervous to start potty-training my little guy.
But I decided to jump in and start anyway! Around 18 months, I introduced a potty book and a little Elmo potty in the playroom. Gerrit liked the book, and we practiced having his stuffed animals sit on the potty during the day if he showed interest in the Elmo potty. I didn’t want to use the Elmo potty for actual potty-training because I didn’t want to transition between that and the actual toilet. So despite him being pretty little yet, I bought this potty seat and stool for the bathroom.
(Okay, how do I seriously have no pictures of this kid on the potty?! I’ll try to add one later, sorry, guys! Here’s a cute one in just a diaper though, haha ^)
A little before Gerrit turned 20 months, I started having him sit on the potty seat on the toilet before bath time. He was definitely apprehensive about it, and he would only sit for a second or two to start. I made sure to praise him just for sitting on it though. If he said he didn’t want to sit on the potty, I never forced it. Eventually we had an accidental tinkle on the potty! And then Phase One of potty-training was pretty much complete!
Once Gerrit realized what the goal was, he started going pee on the potty pretty regularly. I try to sit him on the toilet at every diaper change, and he almost always pushes a little something out, haha! He loves getting praised for a potty success! Sometimes he wants to read one of his bath books while he’s on the potty, and reading a book on the toilet was actually how we got that first success from him. I’m so proud of him for doing as well as he is right now!
So what’s next? I really would like him to have a poop success on the potty, but I’m not rushing that! And I also want him to start telling me when he has to go. He told Andrew once “pee pee” and proceeded to have a success on the potty (yay!), but that hasn’t happened since. I’m not rushing any of this, since Gerrit is still really young, and I want him to have a positive experience with this. I have heard too many stories about kids being pushed to potty-train earlier than they were ready and shutting down and refusing to potty-train because of it. So I’m hoping that easing Gerrit into all of this is the way to go. Wish us luck! 🙂
On An Even Kiel 