Thursday, June 30, 2011

tiny Baby Potty Training

"There has never been a house mess or job so gross and disgusting that the mom didn't feel obligated to clean up."  Until now.
 I just paid Princess Alexis $1.00 to stick her skinny little hand down in the murky potty water to retrieve the baby's pacifier.  Yes, I know....{gag}.  How did the pacifier get in the potty, you ask?  Good question.  6 month old Brynlee put it in there!

I was encouraged to start infant potty training after seeing some of my close friends do it...and accompolish it.  Don't turn me off.  The first time I heard about babies using the potty I scoffed {huuuuh!}.  Then I put it out of my mind as "just weird".
I heard of it again when my good friend, Maggie, showed a picture of her tiny little baby above the potty.  Humm, interesting.  My sis-in-law and I started discussing it and told each other we were gonna try it also...that was back before we were expecting or even anticipating expecting.  It's so much easier to talk big sometimes.  Lo and behold we both got pregnant and had our babies.  She started working with her baby and they got the hang of it.   I was pretty amazed.
Princess Brynlee's first few months were crazy.  We were living in Missouri for her birth, then when she was 3 weeks old we left for Baton Rouge to prepare everything for returning to the Island.  Busy...busy...busy....just doesn't describe it.

After returing to Jamaica, things settled down and we got back into our routine.

On her 3 month birthday, Brynlee and Mommy started her potty training.

It went like this.  We went potty before morning feed, after morning feed, maybe every 45 minutes to an hour after that.  We always tried before naptime and immediately when she woke up.  Research on the subject advised using a word the baby would learn to recognize.  Because of her extremely short attention span and my unwillingness to continually stand in the bathroom and repeat (excuse me) "pee-pee" 500 times, we came up with the "potty song".

It's a catchy little ditty that goes like this,
"Brynlee go pee-pee in the potty like a big girl, Brynlee go pee-pee in the potty like a big girl,
Brynlee go pee-pee in the potty .....pee-pee in the potty... pee-pee in the potty like a big girl.

Sung to the tune of "She'll be coming 'round the mountain".  Don't ask my why..it was the first thing that came to my mind at the time.  The song was forbidden to be sung by anyone.  And the word pee-pee is not mentioned in other rooms of the house or in front of Brynlee, unless whispered to mommy.

Each time we stayed there only through 2 verses.  Never more, unless I could tell she was trying.  It does take some time of "mommy watching" her baby and learning their little "signs" when she needs to potty. Don't think it is All Time Consuming.  I carried her around on my hip or sat her in a chair beside me and continued on with my other duties.

I tried dribbling a little water on her, but that didn't work with us.  She just got ticked off at the cold water.

It honestly only took 3 days and she understood that mommy got soooo excited when she'd go pee-pee during "our" song.  By the end of 5 days the smart little squirt would regularly go on command, especially after she'd been sleeping.

End of 1st month I was so impressed with how intelligent my baby was.
End of 2nd month I got busy with life and thought "this is a hassle taking her potty so often."  Who has time for this?
Before the end of 3rd month I'm so happy I worked with her.  She always goes (excuse me, again) poo-poo in the potty.  I rarely change a dirty diaper.  To me that makes all the work worth it!  She doesn't understand to hold her pee-pee all the time so she still wears cloth diapers.

I don't know if it's for everyone.  I was really impressed with how fast she caught on.  If you have any questions about it I'd love to answer them.

Don't worry we threw the paci away!

12 comments:

Unknown said...

I've heard about it, but I seriously didn't know it really works. If you can do it to a young babe, then I guess you can do it to a bigger kid too! I'll have to start doing that with Josh! You don't have any boys yet, so I wonder if it's a lot different for boys?!?! Someone else might know...

Thanks for posting this...and the pictures of the littlest princess is just sooo cute :)

raising4princesses said...

seriously, Jessie, it was easier on the baby then on my toddlers. I've heard there is a time frame from birth to 6 months then the window supposedly closes for a while. I'm so glad I worked on it now. Eden was my next easy one. She was fully potty trained by her 2nd bday. But now I don't have to spend the next 18 month changing dirty diapers...waiting for her to learn! I would definitely recommend it for your next baby. Love you, Maria ps. my friend Maggie that I mentioned trained both of her little boys.

Jolene said...

Way to go, my friend!

Wanna' come to my house and train my little one now? :)

Paula said...

I love all the pics, especially the last one of the cute little baby foot! This was very interesting...I think I will try it if I am blessed with another baby!

missionarymomma said...

We do this too. Two boys and two girls. It's s much easier in the long run than training two year olds.

I have been planning a post on this too.

Jessica Curtis said...

Everyone here potty trains their infants too. I had each of my girlies potty trained early, then every time we took trips for passports, etc we reverted back to diapers. :( Parasites have kept me from potty training Sammy, but maybe I'll give it a try anyways. It would be nice to only have one in diapers.

Jessica Curtis said...

p.s. thanks for the boost to get going. :)

JoyFilled said...

Way to go! It is definitely worth it! Even late starts, part-time, and very casual efforts here have totally paid off with each of my kiddos!!

SparingChange said...

Though we dont have children yet, I have read about this and would like to try it if we are blessed with children. Great job!

Kayla said...

I've always been fascinated with infancy potty training. The one method I am really interested in is Elimination Communication, which sounds very similar to what you did with your princesses!

Thank you for sharing this. I hope one day I will be blessed with a baby. When I do, I will definitely be going this route for potty training.

Jessi said...

Hey, Maria, it's me again reading this post. Question: Did she poo poo with the song too even though it says pee pee in it? She learned to do both? And how did you know when she was about to go pee pee? I've been saying poo poo to Brina every time I see her pushing and grunting, but I don't know how to catch the pee pee signs. Should I just have one word for both do you think? I want to start with her soon. I've just been trying to get her familiar with the word when she is going in her diaper.

Jessi said...

Ha! Brina and I just started month two. And I'm exactly where you were--Who has time for this? I'm hanging in there though. If I don't write down every little detail of her day, things go downhill. Did you have to do that? Maybe I should just relax! Ha Ha

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