Baby Potty Training

This post is about my baby's *ahem* voiding, so...just warning you.

I had never heard of potty training infants until my Bradley Method classes. My teacher had heard of it and said she was going to try it with her next child. She lent me a book called Infant Potty Basics. Don't read it. The author says the same thing over and over and over just in a different way on every page. Here's a summary: it IS possible to potty train babies. Learn your baby's signals for peeing and pooping. Hold your baby over the potty when you notice a signal. You can use timing, intuition, or a physical signal from the baby (can include facial expressions, grunting, saying "potty," sign language, etc.). Most cultures in the world do this.

So my husband and I were a little intrigued. We waited until J was 8 weeks old to start. (I can just hear everyone now... this woman is crazy! Cloth diapers and wipes and potty training tiny infants?!) Being a Burke, I found a new, unused Baby Bjorn potty on Craigslist for $15 (new would cost about $40 with tax).

This is the potty we bought for J. It's really easy to clean. Just lift out the white part and dump the stuff in the toilet. Then wash in the sink with soap and water. It even has a little splash guard for boys.

My husband soon realized that J almost always peed in it after we took off his diaper. So that's what we decided to do- we would just get him really used to going in his potty so when he was ready to sign or verbally tell us he needed to go, we could put him on the potty. J got really familiar with his potty, and now he pees a lot in it and does almost every poop in it.

That's pretty much all we did until just a few weeks ago, when I occasionally tried a few diaperless days. After several pees on the floor AND a poop...not going diaperless for a while.  

J still can't give us any signals when he needs to go, so I'm still using timing and intuition for it. If you want to try it, it's not hard at all. It's pretty awesome if you have a boy. Before we started this, he would pee all over the place when we took off his diaper. (He even peed into his mouth once...Bad Mother of the Year Award, right here!) After we started, all the extra pee went into the potty. I can't even remember the last time he got extra pee on me/himself/the changing area.

So even though my husband and I aren't really doing infant potty training, it has still been a valuable tool. When he is ready to be trained, he will be used to his potty. I won't have to "introduce" him to it, read him books about, deal with him refusing it. He knows his potty. He likes his potty. I'm hoping it'll be a smooth transition when he's ready. Another great thing about doing the potty early is that it's a LOT easier to wipe up babies when they poop in the toilet versus a diaper. Plus when you're doing cloth diapers, it's awesome to not have to scrape/spray/swirl it out.