13 month old loves to squeeze a wee out and watch it come out - should I try potty?

[springerspaniel]

I have always given my LO some bare bum time - usually just after a dirty nappy so my carpet is safe. Recently I've mistimed it and he has left me delightful pile on the carpet or occasionally has presented me with a handful. Yucky but to be expected. Recently he has shown great interest in weeing. He likes to squat (sp?), bend down so he can see his willy and watch the wee come out. He can do about 5 wees in half an hour if he really puts his mind to it. He strains by the fifth to squeeze it out. He then likes to step back and watch me wipe it up with a wet wipe. I saw him pinch a piece of loo roll today and scrub the carpet with it. Most amusing. I don't show any delight, anger, amusement so I'm neither encouraging or discouraging - it's just one of those things...however should I start potty training or at least allow him to sit on the potty? I know some people start very early but what would you all do? I assumed it would be more like 24 months, rather than 13.

Ah - no definitely not ready yet. Just had a good read around on the net. This site was quite helpful.

www.babycentre.co.uk/toddler/pottytraining/whenchildready/

My DD1 potty trained when he was 13 months but only because he wanted to, had to get him a toilet training seat because he kept wanting to sit on the loo and falling in.

I cant see any harm in having a potty about. I have just potty trained my 2.9yr DD2 and my 8 month old DS3 sits on it all the time.

Definitely get him a potty - but don't think about training for some time yet.

I used to work in a nursery, and we made sure that all from one yrs upwards they had access to potty's and could sit on them if wished at nappy change times.

I did this with my own dd, and she went through a stage like your ds ( i think she was a few months older) of squeezing wees out to watch! She was fully trained by 2 yrs.

Ah - really interesting. Thanks. I'll get him one and see if he fancies trying it. He LOVES to sit on things. He is constantly sitting on his Fisher price garage.

get him one of those winnie the pooh potties that has flushing sounds or the fisher price one which plays a tune as a reward for doing a wee.

springer i think there is a natural curiosity to copy what you do or older siblings, my dd wanted too but was no way ready nor was i
and ds is 2 and jumps up on the loo but equally as nappy to do it on the floor on route to bath so too much stress if it was me at that age!

I started to with Elimination Communication or EC as it's ,more briefly, known. Basically, I tried to see whether my DS behaved differently when he either pooped or peepeed - he did. He glazed over, went a bit quiet and still and grunted, so I introduced the potty.
I only did it part-time, really to give his bum a break from teething rash, and to accustom him to the potty. Usually I would try at times when I was likely to get a 'result', like after a waking up, or after a meal or bath, as long as he was happy and didn't seem stressed.
He's 22 months now and doesn't wear a nappy at home anymore, just uses his potty chair thingy. Can't say I blame him, I wouldn't fancy wearing a pair of pants full of poo.
Recently I was looking for information about urinary tract infections and stumbled across a piece of research where they had found that early 'drilling' i.e. getting a baby into the habit of opening their bowels at set intervals, was quite helpful for the baby in the longer term, to reduce problems with accidents and stress over potty training.
I'll see if I can find a link....
Sorry bit long there.

I can't remember if this was the exact article, but it's basically saying that the 'old' ways of toilet training - minus the coroporal punishment were very similar to the methods now used to address urinary tract disfunction (I think this means wetting yourself?)
This is a bit from the discussion at the end...

"These findings strengthen our proposal that the more frequent
dysfunctional problems in children, e.g. urge syndrome, might be caused by
inadequate methods of toilet-training used more recently, and that the early ?drilling?
on attaining a particular bladder capacity was a way of avoiding later bladder
instability. To confirm these results, further research on a healthy population has been
started recently and will be reported soon." p73
Here's the

link
It's quite a long article.

i know a few who have done it at 15 months, but not earlier than this.