We’re potty training for real in my household. It started ages ago. The kid’s paternal grandmother is originally from Finland and claims to have gotten her first son (the babe’s uncle) trained at twelve months. As with most grandparent claims (AKA family myths) this isn’t entirely true. No matter.
Starting sometime around twelve months we took a little potty brought to us as a gift from a trip to Helsinki and put it with her toys. All of her favorite stuffed animals would sit on it and she became so interested in what they were doing there (and what we, her parents, were doing on the big girl/boy potty) that she managed to produce some, um, items in the potty at around 15 months. We have plenty of pictures of the rare events but she clearly had no concept of when she had to go, or muscle control, until recently (she’s now 2 years 4 months). This coupled with a very crucial factor -- desire/willingness -- has lead to serious training. She’s still in a diaper for naps (we learned this the hard way when an underweared stroller nap was sadly interrupted forty minutes in by a relaxed bladder) and overnight. The amount of potty talk (and potty related books and progress update phone calls to grandparents and rewards for "producing") is staggering. Thankfully both of her parents have puerile senses of humor and find scatological things amusing. It’s been a hilarious process and as I type this, we’re concluding our first week where she spent most if not all of the days outside in the real world (as opposed to in our apartment) in big girl underwear. She’s thrilled and proud and so are we.
She’s a "holder,” as opposed to someone who has to "go" all of the time, which has made this process, arguably still in its infancy, much easier than I expected. What hasn’t been easy? Finding said big girl underwear. It’s pretty simple these days to find the green parenting items I want and need at stores around me. Even in New York City, I do have to go out of my way for certain toys or creams or glass canning jars but eventually I locate what I’m looking for. So when my daughter announced last week that she was done with diapers, I was shocked to discover that it’s impossible to find tiny, all cotton (preferably organic and lacking marketing/ads for Disney characters) undies in downtown Manhattan. ...
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