Potty pause ( Elimination Communication )

[demi]

Today Anthony has been really good and peed 4 times on cue, twice in the toilet and twice outside!
Since he started crawling at 8 months he's been reluctant to sit on the potty long enough for him to use it. He'd just jump off and crawl away. And when he started walking hes became even less interested. I had to put him back in nappies because he was just refusing to sit on the potty and instead hold it in until he got off the potty then hed pee on the floor after 30 seconds. It was turning into a battle so i just put the nappies back on him and gave him plenty of pottytunities at nappy changes and bath and bed time, but i was only geting about 1 pee every couple of days.
Now today i feel like we'be broken through the hurdle. We've just gotten our new bathroom completed and all plummed in and ready to go so i think he liked it becasue it was a new place, and i sat him on the toilet and cued him and he went! Then again after about an hour or so i asked him if he wanted to go and prompted him to the toilet, sat him on and he peed again!And i let him flush the toilet and watch it flush away which he really liked. The we were at the outdoor pool and he went 2 more times with me holding him and cueing him. Thats since lunch time hes been dry! This is a positive day! After 4 months of struggling and feeling like it wasnt working anymore, I can see light at the end of the tunnel!

[demi]

Update:

We had poo again in the toilet this morning. Although i had to take him to our en suite bathroom as the new bathroom was already occupied. He pood straight away but then started wriggling so i washed his bum and let him down and he ran away while i flushed. When i went to get him there was a wee trail of poo drops accross the room! Never mind though, the main thing is we had most of it in the toilet! Im leaving him running about naked, its 40 odd degrees here and he gets too hot with clothes on anyway. But being naked lets him be aware of when he pees so he can make the connection between using his muscles to eliminate and actually peeing. Still feeling positive! :)

[demi]

We are having sucsess with the toilet but he is still refusing to sit on the potty. So i'm putting the potties away for the time being, maybe he'll forget about them then if i bring them out in the future they'll be more interesting and he might want to use them again. Doesnt matter if the potties are in the past anyway, as long as he is using the toilet and going on cue outside it'll be fine :)

[Pumpkin&Piglet]

I wanted to use this method with my second son - I never knew about it with my first - but he didn't really take to it and I didn't have the motivation to stick with it.

Hopefully next time I'll have fewer other things to think about and can concentrate more on my newest little one!

Anyway, it's really encouraging to hear your positivity and that you stuck with it and got results eventually, thanks

[demi]

It was a breeze up until he bacame mobile and started jumping off the potty. Before i was only going through about 1 nappy a day and often that nappy would be clean all day and id end up having to throw it because it would be falling apart from the times id taken it on and off. Id leave him withoutr a nappy in the house most days while hes awake and put it on him to sleep, although he doesnt pee in his sleep, but if i didnt get him right away when he woke up then he would pee so i just put one on to prevent wetting the mattress.
After he started refusing the potty he had to go back in nappies almost full time because id take him to pee when i new he needed but because he wouldnt sit id let him go and he'd pee on the floor within 30 seconds. Very frustrating so i had to put him back in a nappy if he hadnt peed when i knew he needed.
But it seems we're finally getting past the potty pause which im really happy about and its relit my enthusiasm for it again.

I'd recomend reading the book 'Diperfree baby' its very good. When i tried this with my first child i didn't really know about it. I just read an article in The Gardian newspapper and throught id made sence. This is what every mother does in contries where they don't use nappies, and the kids there are all toilet trained at arround 1 year old. Also, if you ask your grandparents, before they had disposibles, the kids were all out of nappies at arround 1-2 years too. The nappy companies are promoting prelonged use of nappies in order for them to make more money out of it. Look at all these pull ups and everything they have for older kids. They are extending the amount of time kids spend in nappies in order to make money. Its not nessesery for kids to still be in nappies after 2 years old. Every baby can be toilet trained before 2 years, especially if they've allways been used to the potty as an infant and aren't conditioned for years just to go in their nappy. Its a difficult thing for them to unlearn and the longer they are used to nappies the harder it is to get them out of them.

[demi]

UPDATE:

So my son went though months of refusing to sit on the potty and the only way i could get him to pee/poo was to hold him over the toilet or the ground outside so he could go. He would sometimes sit on the insert seat for the big toilet but was usually protesting against that too. So i ended up only taking him about once a week as he wasn't enjoying it and it was becoming a struggle. This is the same point where i gave up completely with my first daughter.
A few months ago he started showing interest in his potty again, sitting on it on hie own with his clothes on. Every time i saw him do this i gave him loads of praise and turned it into a fun game for him. My older daughter would sit on the potty and pretend to pee and we'd all clap and cheer then he would want a go. After about a week of him doing this the next time i saw him sit on the potty i quickly whipped off his nappy and sat him back down and he peed! Over the next month he continued to do this, unprompted by me and i gave him loads of praise and fuss for sitting on the potty and even more so if he did something.
He also started telling me when his nappy is pooey , holding his nappy and coming to me saying 'ooh ooh oooh' (he's not talking much yet but i understand what he means ) He just turned 18 months at the beginning of January and i was planning on getting him out of nappies by then so i was really pleased to see him showing signs of readiness!
So i did it, i took him out of nappies during the day and we have been very successful! It's been about a week so far and the past couple of days we've almost had no accidents at all! He's getting progressively better and im only using one nappy at night for him to sleep as he is not able to go the whole night dry yet. But he is out of nappies full time all day and doing fantastic and im really really really happy! I should of stuck with it with my first daughter, would of saved all the hassle of toilet training her when she was older.

[Pumpkin&Piglet]

I wish I had more time to reply properly. I've done a similar thing with my youngest - 21 months - and he's doing well with his potty. When I can I will explain properly. But it sounds like your son is doing really well!

[demi]

I wish I had more time to reply properly. I've done a similar thing with my youngest - 21 months - and he's doing well with his potty. When I can I will explain properly. But it sounds like your son is doing really well!

Yes he's doing grate. I'd love to hear from other mums on this issue.

[Pumpkin&Piglet]

I really haven't put as much effort in as I ought to have/wanted to.

My son is now 21 months and is not yet potty trained but does tell me when he's done a poo and knows what the potty is for and sometimes makes it there for his wees.

We made the same noise every time he did a wee so he's associate the two, this seems to have helped sometimes and had little affect at others.

When I tried seriously to show him to wee on the potty because of the preparation we'd done he got in a day, every wee in the potty, pants on etc, it was amazing.

The next day he was very excited at toddlers and hardly made it to the potty on time at all but tried every time so I was still impressed.

Then I got lazy and he's gone a bit backwards. So I'm a big fan of the elimination communication potty training but it does require work (but then what doesn't?!). Possibly less work than some might think as I'm sure it gets easier as you go along but I didn't put in the effort to start with so we're not seeing the full benefits like we could but we're still seeing some!

[Chaldeonmenthe]

I have never practised 'EC' as such, but all of my three young'uns have kicked around without nappies on during the day since wee babes. The eldest girl toilet trained herself (day and night together) at around 15 months, literally without any prompting from me, and the second (boy) started crawling over to a towel on the floor in the kitchen to wee from 6 months, again on his own violition. He also started spontaneously using the potty unassisted by me at 14 months. Youngest is currently 13 months, and has been copying his siblings by sitting on the potty and using it for the past three weeks, again unprompted.
I put it down to having no nappy, and so being able to see what happens when the 'wee' sensation hits from the word go, and being able to associate the visible wee and poo with somewhere to put it. All three have also had obsessions with watching me and DH use the toilet since small, and I would always tell them what I was doing so they began to know that Mummy puts her wees and poos in the toilet, and we want to as well.
As a result, I have turned into one of the '24 hour nappies are evil' brigade, and have been known to throw soft
toys at the TV when the Huggies ad about 'Your baby is in nappies 24 hours a day, so make sure they are the best seat in the house' comes on.

[Pumpkin&Piglet]

My youngest also managed to think of going to the towel for a wee without any assistance, I think I was too concerned with getting the potty there instead and I put him off a bit.

My thinking now is it's never too late to start so I'm going back to what I ought to have done months and months ago and just leaving him with no nappy on and the potty there to get us both used to how it all works again.

Think I might pop a towel out as well so he can use that if he prefers!

[demi]

You should! I only use 1 nappy at night now and i put one on him if we go out but he usually stays dry and i take him to the toilet if i get the opportunity. I also lifted the rug in the living room so it's easier to clean up any accidents on the wooden floor.
He is still not dry at night but i think thats more because i don't get to him in time and he usually poo's first thing in the morning when he wakes up before he starts shouting on me to come get him. He wakes up really early, usually 5:30-6am, and im not willing to get up before him to put him on the potty.

I think if you are a stay home mum and have the time then it's easy to leave them nappy free at home and it's better for them too. It's not that much extra work. I keep the potty in the middle of the room and just sit him on it when ever i think he needs. It takes all of 2 seconds to do, much easier than nappy changes. I also keep a towel and some antibacterial spray on stand by to clean up any accidents, which happen probably less than once a day. Even if you work you can work nappy free time into evenings and weekends or whenever you are home.