Potty Training Infants & Small Children

(our 2 most recent anecdotes)

Potty training infants is potty training mommies, for the most part. She must catch the baby in the act, and then stop what she is doing and rush off to the john. It is a trade-off between "inconvenient" and "nasty," and every mommy can choose which she would prefer. You can tell when a baby is about to 'make' and it is plain right from the start that he doesn't want to do it in his diaper. Think about it, and you'll realize that you wouldn't want to, either. When #3 was born, we figured out in a hurry that we didn't want to be changing diapers soiled by a baby eating anything but breast milk. Breast milk diapers aren't so terrible (when it's your own child). Solid food-poo is nasty. We took a hint from the good people at No Greater Joy and decided to go ahead and try potty training an infant. It's just this side of impossible to tell "I have to pee" crying from "I want that" or "I'm hungry" or "I'm tired" crying, but it is pretty obvious from the sounds and body language, when #3 is about to go #2. Instead of waiting for a stinky mess to be smeared all over the parts nearby, my Darling Wife decided to go the hard road: pay attention to the baby.

We have a little toilet seat that fits on top of the regular seat, about the size of a toddler's tooshie. When my Darling Wife or I see the charicteristic stiffening of the body, red face, frustrated look and hear the "hmmph" sounds, we snatch him up and put him on the seat. I think I've cleaned out maybe 3 diapers in the months we've been doing this (5 months? 6 months?) and I am pretty happy about that. Today I didn't get him there in time, but I still wiped him off, sat him down, and gave the ritual encouragement speech: "Push poopies! HMMPH!" and he sat there a minute until he figured out he was done. I plopped the majority of the diaper's contents into the potty and we gave the ritual finishing speech: "Bye-bye poopies!" (complete with opening/closing baby fist waving bye to the poo as it goes down the drain). Shortly afterward, we laid him down for a nap and he woke up and cried. He was wet. Fresh diaper, some Orajel (miracle drug) and he fell back asleep.

Potty training an infant has one HUGE advantage/side benefit: you don't have to UN-train them when you think they are ready for potty training at 2 or 3 years of age. You also won't have to convince a child fully capable of both fear and logic, that this big white thing full of water in a cavernous hole, which makes a tremendous noise, and used to be off-limits, is not only "not terrifying" but actually "okay" to sit on. By the time a baby can walk and talk, he will be ready to go plonk his little booty on a little potty and do his own business. You still have to clean it up, but do you really want to be cleaning nasty poop diapers for the next 3 years, until "potty training time" arrives?

Now #2 is 5 years old and a Big Boy. He was sleeping through the night without wetting his bed for several months, pushing a year I guess, with only the occasional accident when he had too much to drink before going to bed. Then he started wetting the bed almost every night, and we decided to Do Something. My Darling Wife and I had a hunch his bet wetting was out of laziness or fear or some other controllable emotion, and that he could break himself of it. We gave him a few warning/try nights, and then broke out an old swimming diaper. He did not want to be wearing a diaper. I sat him down and had a long talk about The Way Things Are, and he eventually agreed that Big Boys who wet the bed should be wearing night-time diapers until they stop wetting the bed. He understood that when he no longer wet his night-time diaper, he would stop wearing them. He still didn't like the idea of wearing a diaper though because, after all, he is 5 already. We went to Costco and got some other large packages of stuff, and came to the Baby Stuff aisle and got a box of boy training diapers. He did not like the idea of wearing diapers, especially a whole big box full of them. We explained that we would get only one box, and if they were all kept dry we would not get another box. He grudgingly acquiesced to the necessity. We got home and opened the box and they had Lightning McQueen on them. (!)

Well now! That is something different altogether! He was perfectly willing to wear some Lightning McQueen chonis and it was a cool-stuff bonus that the trophies on them disappear if they get wet. These here are some Big Boy night-time diapers!

He has kept them all dry since the first one we put on him, and the box is almost empty.