Why is it that little ones always have to “go” when they are in the tub? For Everly its as soon as her toes touch the water in the tub. We’d seen a couple blogs on early potty training and one night as kind of a why not try it moment, we held Everly over the toilet and she used it. We both went “Huh, I guess this could work… then we don’t have to drain and refill the tub each time.”. Call us crazy, but we’ve stuck with this routine for almost a month now. We’ve been hovering her over the toilet before her bath, and it has been hit and miss with it working, but Everly is only 4 months old.
I guess you could say we are part time early potty training her. Some people are much more committed to it, and do what is called elimination communication. I do know one family who have been doing that method since very early on with their daughter and are very successful with it. I was much too apprehensive to try it so early. Some people may think there is no way Everly could be ready to try this, but why is it the norm to wait til a child is over 2? That’s not what is considered normal in other places around the world, so why not give it a try? Seeing to her bathroom needs is just as much a part of parenting, as seeing to her feeding and sleeping needs. Why not start now? Little ones do tend to give signals for when they need to go, now we’re trying to figure out what signals Everly gives. Wish we’d been paying more attention earlier.
With Everly, she is now able to sit on her own for short periods of time when we put her on the ground, she is also able to support herself much better in her Bumbo and chair. I managed to get her an awesome Baby Bjorn Potty Chair which I had read great things about, and have seen it as the one used by many people who attempt to do this. She is able to sit all on her own and we don’t have to worry about her toppling over, but we do still keep an eye on her of course. Last night she wanted to play with the diaper sprayer so we let her, anything to keep her distracted and happy while we all wait. The diaper sprayer is coming in handy for early potty training too, great for clean up. Seriously, all parents should think about getting one of those!
The other night we had a conversation about possibly trying this more often. Before we’ve only tried this just ahead of a bath. We’d noticed that several people suggested trying this first thing in the morning, and after every nap. Today we started doing just that. It has worked every time we have tried today! Obviously if we are away from home it is going to be a bit more difficult so we probably wont try this when out (unless I can find a good travel seat for her little bottom). I’m sure that being away from home is a challenge for anyone with a toddler. We are hoping that by starting potty training this early, that when we go for actually fully potty training her that it will be an easier process when she is a toddler. (Probably just jinxed myself)
Eco-novice is one of the blogs we read about this from, and it had a lot of helpful info.
Has anyone else tried this/are doing this with your little one? Are you considering doing this, why or why not? We’re glad we’ve given it a try. We are trying to just keep it simple, be positive about it, and enjoy whatever success we have with this. We think little ones need to be given much more credit for how smart they really are.
Tamara, I did this with all of my kids. I never actually read about it or researched it, but I also noticed that they "had to go" at bath time. I used to put the potty chair in the tub and sit the child on it. As the water crept up and touched their toes they would pee. We would have a little celebration of "good job!" and then they would get to play in the bath. It was a great no-pressure way to introduce them to potty traing with very much success and all of my kids were fully trained between 18 and 24 months (except for 2 of them at night time – that didn't happen until they were almost 3. The other 2 were even night trained between 18 and 24 months)