Potty

So, we're currently having a very interesting situation where Eli seems, or I should say seemed to be trying to potty train himself! It all started a few months ago. Getting his diaper changed has never been one of his favorite activities, as I think is true of most toddlers. So, I would explain to him that if he wanted to start going to the potty like mommy and daddy then he wouldn't have to get his diapers changed anymore. Now, I wasn't very serious, I never thought that he would potty train anytime soon, I read that the average age for boys to potty train is 39 months(that's 3 years and 3 mos. for those of you who don't want to do the math)! But, if nothing else it was a distraction when I was changing his diaper and then he would say, "No, potty, Eli have diaper" or something to that effect. Well, in April, he started actually wanting to sit on the potty, usually after our diaper discussions, nothing happened, and it would usually satisfy his curiosity for a while.

Then, at the beginning of this week, everything was different. He wanted to change his diaper IMMEDIATELY after going to the bathroom. Now, I attribute some of this to teething. His two year old molars are definitely threatening, and over the weekend the whole experience seemed to have trashed his stomach. So, I think his little bottom might have been sore. Then, Grandma Sallie brought over some potty books that she had found at the thrift store, and Eli decided that he wanted to hear them while he sat on the potty. We did that a few times on Tuesday, nothing happened, but it was awful cute. Also, he has been dry through the night quite a bit lately.

On Wednesday morning, he woke up and decided he wanted to do "potty" again with his potty books. This time, the second his little bottom hit the potty chair he started peeing! Scott and I clapped and clapped, which of course stopped the flow, but he kept peeing once our celebration was over. That day he went potty four times in the potty and once was even on a regular toilet at the pool. Thursday was a similar situation, I couldn't believe it!

But, then I started to realize, to quote a book, that I was the one potty trained, not him. He had only initiated going to the potty a few times himself (if at all). I was asking him and encouraging or even prompting him. According to this same book (Toddler 411) and my common sense agreed with it, he needs two things to be able to potty train. #1 He needed to be able to identify the urge to go, not the idea that he had already gone. #2 He needed to want to be clean. It seemed like he wanted to be clean, at least he did at the beginning of the week, but as the week has stretched on that has only continued to apply to poop. Additionally, I was pretty sure he had only initiated using the potty once himself, and that could have merely been that I had just gotten home from the Allergist, and he associated me with potty. So, in short, Eli has backed away from the potty chair, I don't think he went once yesterday or today and I'm not pushing. My plan is to wait for him to give me another sign. After all, according to what I read, we have at least another year until we need to really think about it.