Potty Training Update

October 6th, 2010

We're continuing to lazily potty train. For some period of time each day, on some days in the last 1.5 weeks, my 20 month old has been in underwear with a cover, usually the plastic pants.

Some points that are worth noting (for me, anyway :)

• She doesn't pee nearly as often as I thought she would. I figured toddlers peed every 20 minutes. It seems to be more like every couple of hours. I was worried she was dehydrated, but output seems to be quite good. She's overfilled diapers twice in the last week when she'd been in them less than 20 minutes.
• No leaks at all in the plastic pants. I'm using 12 mo old size on our 23+ lb 20 month old over little 2T/3T cotton undies. I sometimes wonder if we could have gone smaller because these are so baggy, but I think the bagginess is what lets her know she has gone if she fails to notice she feels wet. Then there's a bag of pee hanging on to her and she'll respond to that immediately.
• I tried putting her in the thicker trainer undies and an empty pocket diaper. She wasn't aware she'd gone. Too much like a diaper and too absorbent, I guess. I don't think warm moisture is very uncomfortable
• Has successfully done at least one nap time in undies and stayed dry.
• One trip out of the house (day 3) in the stroller in undies (with a fleece cover and extra prefolds on the seat) and she stayed dry. Haven't risked it otherwise.
• One day 7, she was standing in the shower (waiting for me to join her) and she told me she needed to go potty a couple of times before peeing. That means she knows ahead of time! Only moments before, but that's a good sign.
• The messiest incident was when she told me she needed to go potty but she's started by the time we got there and I mostly got peed on taking the plastic pants off. Maybe she told me ahead of time, but not by much. It was just a little pee on my hands and the bathroom floor (and the undies and plastic pants) though, so not too bad for messiest incident.
• The last two nights (roughly days 11 and 12), she has been very insistent about needing to go right after we put a night time diaper on her (extra absorbency) but the diaper was wet by the time we got it off her. Good to have more back up night diapers ready. I don't plan to try nights in undies for quite some time both because I'm not sure she's ready (nor am I for getting up all night) and because the plastic pants don't breathe at all so if she's in them during the day, I'd like her to be in something a little more breathable at night. Of course, PUL covers aren't breathable either, but at least the diapers we use have a stay dry liner. I just want to let her skin be dry some of the time.
• She's taken herself to the potty several times when she had to go, stayed dry and hopped up on the toilet (she's using a stool) and went successfully all on her own. I'm still there for clean up and preventing the entire roll of toilet paper from going down the toilet but she's getting to be pretty self-sufficient.

I could put more effort into it and make sure she gets underwear time daily or that I take her more often, but the lazy method seems to be working and not taking more energy than diaper changes. Plus, I know she gets changed immediately so I don't have to worry that she's been in a wet diaper for hours if we go a while between changes. So far, so good.