This morning we started making our first major attempt at potty training. Liam went naked from the waist down all morning and the count thus far is encouraging:
Successfully peed in the potty:Â 5
Successfully pooped in the potty:Â 1
Accidents: 1
Accident to alerting parental unit ratio:Â 1:1
Peed in the potty after sitting down without prompting:Â 1
We’re also learning things about Liam. For example — he’s not a fan of pooping when anyone is looking at him. Matt and I both thought that this would result in him waiting to poop until we put him in a diaper for his nap or for the night (especially since he asked for a pull-up this morning when he clearly needed to relieve himself). We were pleasantly surprised when I asked him if he needed to poop (since he was clearly uncomfortable and holding his bum) and when I put him on the potty he instructed me to go into the hallway. I suspected that what he wanted was for me not to talk to or look at him (since for months when he goes in his diaper the only way to know that it’s happening is that he is out of my sight line and completely silent — and silence is not a natural state for him at any other point), so I took the chance to go to the bathroom myself and then check my e-mail, making sure to only shoot undetected sidelong glances in his direction. A few minutes later he called out to tell me that he had pooped in the potty and was all ready to get up. I was a bit skeptical since I hadn’t heard anything from him, but lo and behold the boy had done it!
All in all, I think the morning has gone pretty well. Fingers crossed that we keep making progress as the weekend wears on…