Little Bean has shown little interest in using the potty. For the past few months I've had the potty in the bathroom and tried to coax him into using it. I've tried getting him to sit on it, fully clothed, to read a book. I've tried getting him to sit on it while I use the toilet. I've tried reading him cute kids books on potty training. So far, the best response was him sitting on there, with pants on, for a couple of minutes. However, the most common response was a near-tantrum. I decided to treat it the same way I treated brushing his teeth. If trying to get him to do it was going to end with an upset, crying child who comes to hate the task, it's better to forget it and let him come back to it when he's ready. I was reminded to follow the child.
Little Bean hated me trying to help him brush his teeth. He would get worked up to the point of hysterics. I gave up and just let him do it himself. His diet is very low in sugar so I figured that it wasn't too bad to just let it be for a while. Sure enough, a few months ago, he started that phase where kids love to copy everything that Mum and Dad does. Suddenly, he's following me to the bathroom, watching me brush and asking for his toothbrush. He even wanted me to help him finish job properly. I must admit, I did a happy dance. On the hard days, it's the small victories like this one that remind us to hang in there.
Back to the potty. Last week, out of the blue, Little Bean sits on the potty while I went to the toilet. And yes, I did another happy dance. Through out the day, he continued to follow me to the bathroom and sit on the potty. Albeit, this is all with pants on but it was progress. The next day, he let me take his nappy off when he went to the potty. So far, he's only staying on there for a few minutes at a time and hasn't actually done a wee or poo yet. I decided that the couple of books by the potty wasn't going to cut it anymore and decided to make a proper toilet area for him.
I put a shelf beside the potty to hold pull-up nappies, wipes, toys, books and plastic bags for stinky nappies. I also added a small washing basket for soiled clothes and a non-slip mat under the potty. We usually use a modern cloth diaper with press studs but it's not practical for toilet learning so I've switched to pull-up disposables for now. I have lots of training pants but he's not ready for them yet. Recently, he's been wearing a lot of summer bodysuits (onsies) as he had really bad eczema on our last trip to Australia and we had to buy bodysuits for him so he couldn't scratch his tummy and back. Between starting toilet learning and his eczema clearing up, I've switched him back to t-shirts and shorts with an elastic waistband. He still needs help pulling his nappy and shorts up and down, but he's improving every day.
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