Potty Training - Unofficially

I've had potty training on my mind for quite a while. I heard that between 18-24 months is a great time to train and if you miss that window it may not work again until close to 3-years-old. I bought a potty several months ago and we have just had it available for Josh to get used to sitting on. Haven't pushed the issue and he has had some scattered success with both elements.

In the last month or so I have wanted to get more serious about it. I read a three day method where you basically keep the child naked from the waste down for those three days. That's the approach I'm leaning towards and hope to do it Labor Day Weekend.

However, this morning Josh was sitting on my lap and I could feel the warmth of him peeing in his diaper. I made a big deal about this and had him feel the warmth and told him it was pee and that he could do that in the potty. When I took that diaper off, I decided not to put one back on. So we spent the morning with one naked butt running around.

I kept asking him if he needed to pee and we would sit on the potty occasionally with no results. After a couple hours I knew he had to be able to go. Instead of asking I just walked him to the potty. He sat down and immediately had quite a bit of pee. We celebrated!

Throughout the morning I could see him starting to get the concept and kind of telling me when he had to go. We got a few little dribbles in the potty and some very minor drips around the house.

The hardest part was lunch time. He kept dribbling (and telling me!!) so I would take him out of the chair and sit him on the potty only to get a drop or two. After the second or third time, he had quite a stream in his high chair and nothing could be done to catch it in time.

But I am feeling very proud that at a minimum he is learning to communicate the need. I put a diaper on him for nap time and he peed again while we were reading. I think he may have told me before he started going and seemed mildly distressed about going in his diaper.

It will be very interesting to see how this progresses.
I'll keep y'all posted!