The end of an easy, clean era

Sigh. I have to accept that this phase of infant potty training is probably coming to an end. From 5 months to 7.5 months, it’s been so simple, so tidy. Here are the details of how we’ve been pottying Finn the past few months.

Equipment:

Potty ready for baby

1) a toilet

2) a folding chair stationed in the bathroom

3) a small box of wipes in a drawer by the toilet

4) a hand mirror

5) links and a colorful plastic toy hanging from the toilet paper dispenser

Whenever I thought Finn needed a potty break, I would take him to the bathroom and sit with him on my lap facing the toilet (seat up) – leaving a clear path from bum to pot for whatever he had to unload.

For a pee, he’d usually just let it go as soon as we got in position. Sometimes if it didn’t start right away, I’d pull out the toy to distract him. Sometimes it helped speed the process if I took a deep breath and relaxed all my muscles. He’d relax too, and out would come the stream.

He warns me (still) of impending poop by a sudden pensive look and a distinctive grunt. I pull off his pants and head for the toilet. Once we get there, he often looks a bit perplexed, as if the move interrupted him and so he forgot what he was doing – “I was playing, now I’m here, what gives?” I’ve tried grunting noises to cue him and tensing up my own abdominal muscles, but what works is to show him the mirror. He looks at himself and suddenly (“oh, yeah…”) resumes pushing. Once he starts launching his poops, I reposition the mirror so I can keep an eye on the progress, know when he’s done, and make sure I get his bum clean. I keep wipes handy, but most of the time, a bit of toilet paper will do. I’ve used this in public toilets too- instead of using a chair, I just sit backwards on the edge of the toilet. Not comfortable, but it does the trick.

In 2 months of solid food pooping, I have had to rinse out exactly 2 cloth diapers because of a missed poop. I’ve missed other poops (not many, maybe 1 every other week), but those had a firm consistency, and the little nuggets just rolled off the diaper and into the toilet leaving the barest of a skid mark that came out in a normal wash.

So what’s changing? So far the poop procedure still works perfectly, but a couple weeks back he started objecting to being brought in for a pee. He’d stiffen his whole, long body and issue forth a mighty fuss. This, of course, gets tiresome. So we’ve broken out the little green Baby Bjorn potty and I’m trying out new pee routines. Crawling is just around the corner, so I must face the reality that, eventually, the poop process will change too. I’ll let you know when we figure out the next stage.

the start of an easy, pre-bath poop with Patrick