Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Potty Training

Dan and I have decided to take a proactive role with potty training. I have been told by some that boys just can't be potty trained until they are 3 1/2 (why 3 1/2, I have no idea), but I just can't imagine having to buy diapers for another 2 years. And having them poop in their diapers at that age just seems weird. I know that this topic is one of great contraversy. But as a parent we do have to pick sides. And we believe that we can potty train him before he's 3.

Our plan for right now: Every morning we get him up, take him to the bathroom to brush teeth and have him try to "Go Pee" (as Josiah says). Then when we get home, take him and have him try to "Go Pee" and put one of those pullups on him for the evening (so one a day for now), in the hopes that the pullups changing powers will make him realize he is going pee or whatever they do :) Then before bath, have him "Go Pee" again. As of right now, we are not going to enlist our day care, because she is of the mind set that it can't be done and shouldn't even be tried until they are 3 1/2. So we are going to do this on our own, until we start to see results. I have told our day care about it so that if Josiah says "Go Pee" she will know what he is talking about and eventually start taking him to go.

We have not done any research on this topic, we are just going with our gut instinct right now. So we will see how this goes. Any advice from any of you seasoned parents ;)

2 comments:

Mindy Richmond said...

No real advice from me obviously, but in my experience gut instinct usually ends up to be right in the end. I hadn't heard that about not being able to potty train boys before 3 1/2 but it does seem silly. Every kid is different, and if they are open to it and seem to be ready earlier, why not go with it? The earlier you expose them to it the less pressure that will be on them later (and from my personal experience as a young girl being potty trained, pressure was the last thing I needed!). Good luck!

Anonymous said...

I can't imagine where this idea of 3-1/2 comes from. My experience is with three boys all born two years apart and all trained before 2-1/2. The youngest was 18 months. It wasn't that we spent so much time on it either; after all, there were three to be running after at the same time! I also worked full time but had cooperative baby sitters. Good luck!