Toilet Time

It's so hard to find a moment to sit at my PC and write something down. I'll steal this moment or 2 just to document Jude's latest development (not forgetting I have a beautiful 2 year old as well as being pregnant).

Having worn cloth nappies his entire life, Jude became aware of his bowel movements at a young age. He was telling us "wee wee poo" from about the age of 18-months. However, at that time we lived in a rented apartment and it was winter. The prospect of attempting to potty train just seemed impossible. We would never be able to explain why the rented carpet smelled of pee and was covered in yellow stains.

When we finally bought a place and moved in, we waited a while to make sure Jude was settled. But we bought a potty and introduced him to the concept of sitting on it. The result was that Jude would tell us "wee wee poo" and then sit quite happily on the potty for a good hour without actually doing anything.

The challenge was for him to learn how to release and let go, and I had no idea how to teach him that skill. Running water didn't seem to make any difference, so we just continued allowing him to sit there doing nothing without any pressure to perform.

Then one morning a few weeks back we heard a noise and recognised the tell-tale sound of the toilet seat being raised and dropped. When we went to investigate we found Jude sans nappy, wee-filled potty in his hands, trying to empty the contents in the toilet as he had seen on a video once.

This was a bit mind-boggling that he would suddenly decide to start using his potty, but also completely like Jude who has a strong independent streak.

We haven't really potty-trained him, as such. We merely introduced him to the idea and gave him the facts. It was entirely up to him to decide to actually go ahead and start using the potty. Now we can sit him on a toilet and he'll go. He happily wears underpants around the house and every couple of hours I sit him on the potty and he empties his bladder. I do that just to make sure he doesn't get distracted and forget. It's been very easy and we've had no accidents ever since he decided it was time.

I haven't been brave enough to take him out in public in his undies, because I'm not 100% convinced he'd tell me he needed to pee. My biggest concern is that he would wet his car seat and that's something I don't fancy attempting to clean, and nor do I want to drive around in a car that smells like pee.

Eventually, though, I guess I will have to take the chance because he can't wear nappies out in public forever.