Potty Training Adventures

WARNING: Potty terms will be used in the blog post below. Read at your own risk!

What??

Yes, that's right. I'll start from the beginning...

Leah started sitting in her Bumbo at around 6 weeks. I noticed that each time, I put her in it in the morning she would go poo in it. I thought it was funny and we started calling it her "poopy seat." At the reunion in July, I showed my family Leah's "little trick" and my sister Heather said that it was great and it should be easy to potty train her.

About a month after the reunion, I was bored one day, so I decided to search for Bumbo potty training seats. One came up on Amazon and I read the reviews. In the reviews it mentioned that the Bumbo toilet seat was perfect for "infant" potty training. I posted a link to it on my sister's wall on Facebook and she said that it couldn't hurt to try. I still didn't act on it because the idea of potty training a baby seemed kind of ridiculous to be honest. About two weeks ago, I got bored once again and decided to just go for it and buy the seat. If she didn't use it, fine. She could just use it later when she was ready. No money wasted.

I bought it and it was shipped to me the next day. Love Amazon! I wasn't in a hurry and waited until the evening to even open the box. I put the little seat on the toilet, took off Leah's diaper, and just sat her on it. We read her favorite book, played with some toys, and nothing happened. She was comfy and just kind of hung out on it like she was sitting in her actual Bumbo. Oh well. No big loss. I put her diaper back on her and we went about our day.

The next morning, I put her on it and about a minute after she sat on it, she went pee. I was so excited that I started clapping and I actually scared her. :) I picked her up off the seat, praised her, hugged her, and then put a diaper back on her. I tried periodically throughout the day just randomly putting her on the seat. The next time she actually went poo. I never thought I could be so excited about a bowel movement. It is a sure sign that I have become a mommy. She went about four times that day with just randomly putting her on the toilet.

The next day didn't go as well, so I decided that I needed to study her to look for cues. We've now had the potty seat a week and some days are more successful than others. I never get upset if she has a wet or poopy diaper. It feels like an experiment at this stage. The good thing is that I rarely change poopy diapers. Maybe once every other day. When she poops in her diaper, she gets REALLY upset, like inconsolable, and I have to actually nurse her to calm her down. We haven't had this happen when we are out and about yet. I'm worried I might have to start carrying this seat around. She doesn't really have peeing in the toilet down. If we catch it, it's by luck. I'm trying to figure out what cues she gives before she wets her diaper. Poopy is easy because she usually has gas and I just walk her to the toilet.

Now I read somewhere that doctors say that babies under the age of one do not actually have control on their bowels. All I know is that I put Leah on the toilet and she goes... Most of the time right away. It's really quite unreal.

My main reasoning for doing this is purely financial. I've already cut down on the amount of diapers I've been using by about a third. It's mostly work for me because I'm the one that has to read her cues and put her on the toilet. I've heard of some pretty terrible potty training nightmare stories from parents and I'm just trying to get her used to the potty so maybe it won't be so foreign when it is time to "officially" potty train her. We'll see. This is just my latest adventure in mommyhood.