Hellobee Boards

@sloaneandpuffy: if you can get him on the potty every 30 minutes, I think that's amazing! We just do the most likely times of the day (e.g. before/after meals, sleep, leaving the housen etc...).

@sloaneandpuffy: how old is your LO? Mine is 16 months and so many people are telling me I should start. I tried for one day and never got anything in the potty. My friend did it with her 13 month old and she was potty trained by 15 months. We are always out and about so I haven't done it consistently but starting to think about it. Does every 30 minutes seem to be working?

@sandy: If you haven't done EC or introduced what the potty is-- any of that stuff beforehand, it might make more sense to wait. You could start doing "pre-potty training" so to speak-- bring LO in with you to watch you go, talk a lot about the potty, talk him through how it works, teach the words for it or the baby signs, etc. The thing with starting early is that it takes a lot longer and more consistent effort from the parent. So if you're busy, it might be better to wait until LO is older and you can do it in 3 days or the quicker methods. We're doing potty training at 17 months, but we've been dabbling in EC, so the concepts aren't new to him-- he gets what potty time is and how it all works-- but also I'm not expecting him to actually be potty trained for months and months still because he started at 16 months.

@sandy: For books--- I've been following "Diaper Free Before 3" mostly. I've read the "The Diaper Free Baby," and another one (the title escapes me) but I felt like "Diaper Free Before 3" was the best-- if you're going to get just one, that's the one to get. She focuses on starting at 6 months, but if you start later that's fine and she tells you how to adjust for starting with an older baby or toddler.

And a thought on sitting on the potty-- X only goes 2 or 3 times per day, plus he usually pees in his nap-time diaper. Since he only goes ever 2 or 3 hours that he's awake, he could sit on the potty for hours and nothing would come out. So one option is to put her in training pants or just go without a diaper so you see when she tends to go (like after she starts eating, or at wake up time and a couple of hours after, or whatever her timing is). Once you figure out her timing, you can start encouraging her to sit on the potty during those times. Another is to do 15-20 minutes on, 15-20 off. Eventually she'll do it a few times and start to get it. But X is too active-- he won't sit for more than a few minutes, and I don't want to force him and make potty time a chore. Plus, like I said, he could sit on the potty for hours and not pee. And I just don't have patience to do that all day long either. So the 15-30 mins on/15-30 mins off method is not a good fit for us. I think the 15-30mins on the potty method is probably more successful quicker, but I'm ok with going slow.