Ds 7mths - is it worth starting to sit him on the potty? Has anyone found this helped long term?

[theprecious]

I have found this link which is really good about early potty training and may have missed the boat kellymom

I wondered if it was worth trying with ds. He is quite obvious when he poos and it seems crazy to sit and watch him. Should I whip off his nappy and sit him on the potty? I use disposables at the mo.

Questions are - will it make any difference long term?

Also I am going back to work four days a week in July and I can't expect my childminder to do this so again, is it pointless?

Any views appreciated. I might post in parenting as if it's worked for people they won't be looking in this section.

Babieseverywhere does EC so it's worth waiting for her to come along, she has a blog too about her experiences.

We do not do full on ec but we do put our ds (9mo) on the toilet (with a baby seat insert) or potty at each nappy change and if we see him obviously trying to poo. We've done it since he was about 5 months old, I think.

Does it make a difference long term? I have no idea yet! I imagine it will slowly help him to understand what the toilet it for but really as much as anything we do it to try and get him to poo in the toilet and therefore save him from sitting in a dirty nappy (and saving us a gruesome nappy change). We don't do it full on enough to really expect it to result in an early potty trained child, I don't think.

Time will tell

I meant to say, my reasoning for starting was the same as yours - if I can see he is trying to poo it seemed absurd to sit and watch him fill his nappy and then deal with the aftermath.

You could try asking your childminder if she would mind. presumably she would do it for an older child on the verge of potty training? All it means is having a potty and when she takes his nappy off she plops him on for a few seconds to see if he´ll do anything and then put a clean nappy on. It´s really not asking very much. My ds is going to nursery in April and they do this anyway after 1 year!

thanks Maveta, you reply makes sense. I guess what I want to work out is a plan to start this as don't want to start then give up as I haven't thought it through enough.

Does you ds poo / wee on the pot? Do you change him in the bathroom or have the pot in his room?

well we've always changed him in the bathroom anyway which is why we just bought a seat insert for the toilet. In summer I think I will have a potty as he is more likely to be running around naked. My mum looks after him several days a week and she has a potty that she uses the same way I do. Although she gives him a magazine to read (eat) and gives him a bit longer than I do

He does go when we put him on it. Not always, but a lot of the time. I think it's worthwhile, if you can be bothered!

we do this with dd 7 months as she nearly always wants to poo when we take her nappy off. I would say do it and i'm sure childminder will oblige - it will actually make her life easier anyway. Long term our ds started doing this about 15 months old and was pretty reliable with poo and always has been. I can cope with wee in pants but poo is not nice when you are out!

we started putting ds on the potty at 10 mo and at 20 mo he's potty trained - I'd say its worth it saves on washing! or in your case it could be cheaper in the long run, btw he was at CM four days a week from April till Dec (when I started mat leave again) and she used to put him on after naps and meals, she wasn't as in tune with him as us but it all helps

obviously all children are different but I personally think its good to let them get the practise in

You haven't missed the boat, I have heard of mothers using ECing as a gentle way alternative to traditional toilet training on much older children, 2/3 years old.

7 months is a fab age to start, there is a Yahoo group set up just for mums starting ECing with 6 month and older babies which I reckon you will find very useful. Here

You can expect your childminder to look after your baby in a reasonable way and if you want the baby to be pottied she should respect that, within reason.

As Maveta suggested, asking the childminder to pop baby on a potty at nappy changing times wouldn't be any extra work. You could also ask them to pop him on the potty after awaking up from his nap and 5 minutes after a milk feed.

I also think that babies accept different care in different situations...i.e. Nursery gives me milk in a bottle, where as mummy breastfeeds me. I have heard of part time ECed children who seem to cope just fine.

what about during meals? Ds always goes then, should I grab him and interrupt his dinner? Will he get the message and wait till afer?

I am also goig to post n Parenting as I need to convinve dh that this is worth doing

I would offer the potty before meals and see if he uses it then. When he is given a regular option to use a potty, over time he will hold on until the next potty time.

The other main thing is too relax and just go with the flow. I started potting by DD at 10 weeks old, I didn't ask my DH about it as the main carer I felt this was my decision and by the time he noticed, he was amazed that I was catching wee's.

thanks babieseverywhere - I didn't see your post when I posted last.

We started DS at 7mths, been going 2mths now. We were in Barcelona last week, so routine was interrupted, but we put him on potty first thing in the morning,then as soon as we got in, about 5pm. He poo'd every day only at those times. It seems to us he was waiting for it.

I'm teaching him the shaking T sign as well, so he can start to tell us when he needs potty. Do it every time you take him and put him on.

I'm not doing it full time, but figure (as I'm going back to work soon too), if he's on first thing, just before we go out, when we get in and just before bed, it should set him up for being comfortable and used to using a potty sooner rather than later, and make it easier to get him out of nappies when the time comes.

No problem re the cross post. Poo is different to catch than wee. My original post refered to 5 minutes after a milk feed, relates to wee. Where as poo is different, if you 'know' he is going to poo during meals, trying the potty before that point makes sense.

well we had our first poo on the potty this morning! I was very chuffed.

So I guess we do on the potty in morning, before and after feeds and in the vening, oh and at every nappy change.

Further question; Ds is big enough to be in pull up nappies. Do you think it's worth trying him in these so I don't have to keep undoing - redoing disp nappies? Not likely to move to real nappies, I can't keep up with the washing as it is.

well done babyprecious!

can he stand (supported)? He probably needs to be able to before pull ups are an easier alternative. My ds loves standing but needs a lot of support, I tried a pull up on him the other day and it was a bit of a struggle. That was a one off though as we use real nappies..

which actually brings up a q. for me.. Today I thought I would also up the amount of times I put him on the pot i.e. after sleeps and meals, not just at nappy changes. So he got up this morning, I changed him. Then he had breakfast, so I put him on the toilet again. Now in that time he had done a pee in his nappy, so I changed it. Is this what you would all do or would you reckon, it's only a little pee, and put the same one back on? Cos if not I think this could just about triple my laundry load!

Yeah, for your first poo catch, it is so much easier to clean a potty than a childs bottom.

Just a beginner hint, don't offer a potty too often, else the baby will get fed up and start refusing, the idea is to learn to communicate with each other (eventually)

Here are a few links on how we started and a few starter tips. EC Links

I don't know anything about disposable nappies and what is suitable when but pull up and down sounds good.

I know you said you are unlikely to move to real nappies, however the catch rate rockets when you use cloth nappies/trainer pants/underwear as the child knows straight away when they wee and that it makes them wet. At 7 months he is old enough for trainer pants. We use to use Bright Bot size small (between 5 months and a year) at your stage.
Bright Bot Trainer Pants at £3.95 a pair

I don't know how much you spend on nappies but a few pairs of trainer pants would quickly pay for themselves and you can still use your standard disposable nappies for nights.

ECed children rarely have a poo accident (once they are regulaly offered a potty)and wee accident pants can be thrown in whatever normal wash isin the machine no extra loads needed

Maveta, Regarding the little wee in the nappy, it is a personal choice. I have always changed a nappy if it has a tiny wee in it, as I dislike the thought of my DD siting in a wee but this is my opinion only and reading these boards, I think I am in the minority.

The other thing to consider is what you wish to tell your baby, do you want your DS to be happy to be in a wee nappy, he will think that is where you want him to wee, but is you explain and encourage wee's in a potty/toilet and keep him in clean/dry nappies/pants at all time, he is more likely to 'get' what you are teaching him sooner.

Again I am talking about cloth nappies, I have no experience (we only used them for a few weeks)at how a slightly wee'd in disposable nappy works, but you did mention washing loads, so I assume you are using cloth.

It is fairly easy to put pull up pants on a baby. I sit my dd on my left knee facing away from me and put one leg at a time though the correct leg hole of the pants and pull them up as high as possible usually to around the mid thigh. Then I lean her over my right knee on her tummy and pull up the pants over her bottom and back to the left knee to pull the rise at the front up to her tummy button. It doesn't take more than a couple of seconds and much easier to do than to write about...LOL

I think maybe in summer we could try with the trainer pants but I don't feel brave enough for that yet! lol maybe once I feel more confident that we are catching more than we are missing.

So far I've always put him into a clean nappy and think I would continue, I just find it a bit bleurgh to put him back in a wet (ish) nappy. Just wondered if that's what everyone else does. Yes we do use reusables in the day and disps at night although if his night weeing ever slows down we might try again with cloth.

Maveta, we use to go though 30 disposable nappies a day when DD was a newborn, as I could not bring myself to put back on a 'used' nappy How much nappies did I put in the landfill, it makes me sad to think of it TBH But hopefull all the cloth/ECing and the new babe will be in cloth and maybe ECed from the start I will make up for all my past nappy waste.

I kept DD in cloth nappies much longer than I needed to. We started ECing at 10 weeks old but only moved to trainer pants at 5 monthsand real underwear at a year. Though we still seem to be in trainer pants a lot at times.

You are right it is all to do with what we as parents are comfortable and there is nothing wrong with that.

Guess what - prior to deciding to try this I had just bought two boxes of nappies from the cash and carry....In the next size up! So we won't we using trainer pants just yet. I think I will use up the nappies then try pull ups then trainer pants....

How annoying, I am not usually so organised to buy things in advance.

Your blog looks great babieseverywhere, I am reading it now.

Does anyone have a travel potty that they recommend? I hate carrying stuff so the smaller the better. Or a toilet insert seat

(three poo catches today and two misses)

Wow, you are doing very well, very quickly

I bought a Tommy Tippee Potette (Travel Potty) & Liners from Mothercare. I found it very useful when DD was very little. Some people sew wet bags to fit them, so you don't have to keep buying liners.

Now I carry a Folding Padded Toilet Seat and yes I did buy one of Ebay from USA, as I can't find an UK source. You can get plain plastic wit no padding in the UK but the Cushie one is less flimsy and looks more comfortable.

definately use the potty. saves on nappies and it feels kind of cool knowing when your baby needs to go. kind of like you know them that bit better, or on a different level, or something hippyish like that.
i have a question for babieseverywhere though, (apologies to OP for hijack.)
dd is 19mo and used to tell me when she was ready to wee so i could get her to the loo. she has pooed in the potty since about 6 months, but ATM she's not telling me when she needs a wee . as i have been used to her telling me, i often don't put a nappy on her so am getting caught out quite a lot ATM! its not a great problem as i put her on the potty when i think she will need to go and we still only use 1-2 nappies a day, but i can't work out why she has stopped telling me.

wherethewildsheepare, That is interesting change of behavour. In the past my DD has stopped or altered her cues when she was either ill, developing a new skill or when there was major changes in the home.

Do you think any of this things might apply to your little one ?

Maybe give her some naked bottom time at home with a potty in sight, that will give her the chance to use the potty on her own terms.

That is the maddening and endearing thing about babies/children every time we think we understand what is happening things change

actually she is just starting to walk. which i kind of suspected to be the reason she has been distracted so i'm glad you think it might be that too.
at the beg of jan she crawled, which she has never done - she was always a bum shuffler - and started to pull herself up to standing and while she was doing that, she did a few poos on the floor, which she had never ever done before. that stopped quite quickly though so i'm hoping she'll go back to alerting me about weeing once she has mastered walking.

thanks BE.
and back to the OP, i do think its worth it in the long run to start at 7mo, you do need lots of patience though!

theprecious IME this is a completely pointless thing to do. Children do not get any detrusor muscle control (neck of bladder muscle) until they are approx 18mths to 2yr old. Therefore, the outcome will be the same whatever. Also, if you try to train a child too early it may lead to decreased self esteem due to continually having accidents.
I am a CM and have been a nurse (still registered). The only person being trained will be you- to get LO to the potty before the pee hits the floor .
The other thing is that they cannot be completely trained until they are capable of getting bottoms down by themselves i.e. taking themselves to the toilet.