Potty talk

A couple of months ago, Maddie started getting interested in what Daddy and I (and others, so I hear) do on the potty. She would come into the room with us and sort of watch shyly. Then she wanted to help flush, or tear off toilet paper. We started talking about pee-pee on the potty, and she was very interested.

Andrew went to Target one weekend (I believe I was home sick) and bought the least offensive toddler potty he could find -- it plays music when its sensors sense something wet. (The others talked and shouted and spat out stickers, all too creepy for his taste.) We decided to at least have the potty in the house so we could start talking about what to do with it.

First, Daddy showed Maddie the music feature by using a bath toy to pour water into the bowl, which prompted her to want to put "agua" in the potty and splash around in it every time she came into the bathroom. We finally broke her of that habit. Then we asked if she'd like to sit on it. So she began raising the lid and sitting down on it fully clothed.

But when we asked if she'd like to take off her pants and diaper and make a pee-pee in the potty, she has always said with great gusto: "No!" A couple of times when I tried to place her bare-bottomed on the potty, she has whined and fussed and resisted. So we've just been letting her warm up to the idea.

In the past couple of weeks she has been bringing her "babies" into the bathroom, setting them on the potty, then tearing off tiny squares of toilet paper and "wiping" them. She often ends the routine by shoving her more flexible stuffed animals and dolls down into the potty and closing the lid on them. (Maybe that's what she thinks is going to happen to her.)

Only a few days ago, we finally got her to sit without pants on the potty. It didn't last very long, and I think she was a little freaked out by the whole idea. The funny thing is that I know she knows what to do; she's just not really interested in doing it yet.

Comments

[Susan Murphy]

Maddie is well on her way to being trained! She's not even two (!), but she's definitely interested. I bet she will be using the potty before you know it. (We let Katie sort of interact and bond with her potty for months, and then suddenly it just clicked and she was "there.")