Potty Learning

While at the LLL Conference, one of the sessions I attended was on potty training techniques. It was an enjoyable session with many laughs and moms asking good questions and sharing helpful experiences. I've come to believe that there really a great variety of potty training techniques that have varied dramatically according to culture and era. I think most of them end up working fine and the only ones I don't like are the ones that use force, a strict timetable, and shaming.

Essentially, I've been laying foundation for John's potty learning since he was born. The mere fact that most babies are their watching their stay-at-home moms in the bathroom multiple times per day is teaching about toilet habits! I had wanted to try some part-time elimination communication with John (what the entire countries of India and China, plus many others, still practice to this day), but was too overwhelmed as a new mother and missed the window of opportunity, but maybe next time! Really, I view potty training more as potty learning, something the child is doing for months and years starting from birth. (In fact, I believe--quirky as I am--that we train infants to go potty in their diapers, which actually goes against their instincts. Then we arbitrarily decide later that now it is time to train them never to go potty in their diapers.) We don't "train" a child to walk or use utensils to eat or anything else in just a few days: it's really a months- or years-long process that involves observing adults do the behavior, imitating at a baby level, stumbling, making mistakes, and having success an increasing amount of the time. Just think: We announce, "Our baby learned to walk!" at a certain point, but the baby doesn't walk as well when he first learns as he does a few months later, or at two years old, or at five years old, and in fact he's still improving his coordination for quite a few more years! Yet we expect toddlers to just "learn" to use a grown-up toilet (and manage their clothing on and off, and wipe, and wash hands with soap, and stay dry all night, and stay dry in public . . .) all at once and just be done with it.

John is at that sweet age when he is showing much interest in the potty and is imitative and desirous to please. I do think it's a little strange that most of us in America wait until the child is two to three years old to begin potty training, when that is when they are smack in the middle of their age-appropriate rebellion and desire to be different than the parent. John has a sign for POTTY (verb and noun) and uses it with 100% accuracy to inform me beforehand when he is going to have a bowel movement. He shows great interest in the physical mechanics of the grown-up toilet and toilet paper. I have learned to stifle my instinct to shriek, "No! That's dirty! That's not for you!" I don't want to scare him away from a tool that, in fact, I want him to learn how to use! Instead I'm letting him touch the toilet (although he is still not allowed to entirely unroll the toilet paper!) and we're just incorporating washing his hands before we exit the bathroom.

I recently bought him Mr. Rogers' book Going to the Potty. I did not realize the acute interest John would show, but he has asked us to read the book over and over in the last few days. He repeatedly makes the sign for POTTY, says "wow!," and stares with the greatest concentration. Here is a video clip of his reading the book:



After seeing such great interest, today I bought John his own toddler's toilet. He's had an insert for the adult toilet for months, but he seems to feel nervous sitting on it. Some kids do better on their own little toilet with feet firmly planted on the floor, so we're going to try that. John tried sitting on it in the store and seemed eager and simultaneously serious about his little accomplishment, like he knew sitting on it was a big deal. Here we are at home, showing Daddy:

And note in this photo John's very first scraped knee. We recently made some improvements to our balcony: we had screening installed to keep out the glaring sun and bugs, we laid down an outdoor rub, and we furnished it with some comfortable chairs and a table. Now John enjoys playing out there, but he tripped and landed on the cement, scraping his knee.

P.S. And, yes, even I see the humor in how I can have so many opinions about potty training when I haven't been through it completely yet with my first child!