The ABCs of getting baby ready - A for Awareness

The ABCs of getting baby ready are Awareness, Beginning and Conditioning.

AWARENESS: The first step in getting baby ready starts with awareness. Awareness is a two-way street for caregiver and baby. As caregivers, we use the three key principles.

 “Follow my baby’s cues, she’s the expert”

 “ My baby is an expert communicator.”

“As a parent, trust that I am the expert in my individual baby”

Awareness of baby’s “pee” and “poo” cues is built by observing baby keenly, listening, watching, sometimes – even smelling. At this stage, the aim is to learn your baby’s cues and understand their unique communication. No change in behavior or habits is required – just observation. If baby is in diapers – continue with diapers. Use this step to learn and observe baby. If you think they’re about to “pee” or “poo”, watch carefully. Notice if they make any sounds, body movements, facial expressions . When you think baby is done, ask, "are you done "peeing" (Or pooping)?, let's go change your diaper". Promptly change baby's diaper. This will help you confirm your observation as well as provide you an opportunity to communicate to the baby what they have just done. If the baby has “peed”, when changing her diaper you can say something like, “I see there's pee in your diaper. Let me change your diaper so you can be clean and dry”.

Awareness for baby is built by providing her opportunities to listen, observe and learn from other people who know how to “pee” and “poo” in a toilet. Watching a video or an older sibling and labeling the action helps. For example you could say “I see Katie is peeing in the toilet”. If you have an open door policy in your home, you can take baby with you to the bathroom and explain what you’re doing in a casual, natural way. Before you flush, show baby the contents and say, "let's flush the toilet and say bye bye to "poo" (or "pee"). With practice, you will become an "expert" in your individual baby's habits, patterns and idiosyncrasies!

The length of this step will greatly depend on your individual circumstances. When I started toilet training my older daughter, I had not prepared her or myself this way...For all I know she may have thought that everyone wore diapers. I had a clue about when she "poo'd" but I had no clue when she needed to "pee". When her younger sister was born I was home for a year. I started to observe her right from birth. It was easier for me to know when she needed to “poo” than “pee”. With “poo” she would pass gas, push, make a face. When changing her diaper I would tell her – “I see you just went poopoo, let’s go change your diaper”. I let her go to the bathroom when her sister was there and explained what she was doing. I let her get accustomed to the sound of a flushing toilet, the smell of "poo", the color of "pee". Whenever I changed her diaper, I said, "I see you have "poo" in your diaper. Let's change it so you can be clean and dry".
Do you and your baby have this Awareness?

How can you tell that baby is "ready"?

When my daycare teachers declared that my 21-month old daughter was not “ready”, at first I was angry and disappointed. As I thought about it later, I realized that the question of readiness is debatable depending on who you talk to, what book you read, the culture you’re from and a parent’s personal preferences. I also started to question whether “readiness” is really about the child or the adult. As a parent, when do you decide to teach your child to speak? eat? sing? say the alphabet? Do you have a checklist to let you know if your child is ready? What do we mean by “ready”?

When I started toilet training my older daughter, I waited impatiently for her to be “ready”. Based on the “readiness Signs” I was watching for, I determined that she was ready at 2 years, 7 months in October 2010. By then our second born was 1 month old. My daughter was confused about the arrival of her little sister, she was at the height of a toddler’s search for independence – her favorite word was “No” and favorite phrase was “Me do it”. Additionally, it was the starting to get cold. In the months prior to starting formal toilet training, we read books, watched videos and talked about the potty. Once we felt she was ready, we followed the “Cold Turkey” method. We said “Bye-bye” to diapers, pull-ups day and night. The 5 months that followed were the most stressful part of parenting (someone told me to hold that thought because this is nothing compared to what’s coming in the teenage years!). 

For my second daughter, since I will not move her to a different daycare, "Ready" she scores 10/10 on the daycare provider's questionnaire. If this is the goal I've set, then I have to start preparing her early..Give her practice, make the experience fun and positive. She will remain diaper free at home and continue to ear diapers to daycare. I will teach her to dress/undress herself; giver her opportunities to ask for potty...

I think she'll do fine :-)

When is the right to start Toilet training?

I asked my Kenya-based Facebook friends this question, “When is the right age to start potty-training? Is 18 months too late? I got a wide variety of responses.

‎”I potty trained mine at 24 months.”

“Toilet training starts from 6 months. Just put them when you know they’re ready to go and clap for them when they do it. By 1 you’re done.”

“I started at 2.5yrs. There's hope.”

“I started mine at 6 months. She’ll be 8month next week. When she’s on it she is relaxed as long as the TV is on”.

“I tried at 15 months, it wasn’t working. Now at 19.5mths, he’s taking an interest. “

“I started at around 12 months. They are now three years and we are still trying*frustrated mothers of boys”

“My eldest LO learned to use a potty at 2 and a half. There's no "right" or "wrong"…they learn easiest when they are ready.”

“Babies are different..some can use the potty very well at 13months while others at 3 years. Just be patient. Start by explaining the concept of “pee” and “poop” first then the baby will understand the purpose of the potty”

“Mine is 2 and 1 months. Shhe has not sat on that thing even once. She rides it as a scooter in the house but I have chosen not to force her. She will know in due time.”

“I was taught in college that it starts from 6months. You know what time your baby poops so just put them on the potty and encourage them to do it. Soon they know that it’s done on potty. By the time my girl was 1yr I onlu used a diaper at night. She wouldn’t  even do it on a diaper at night so it was always dry in the morning -  she would run to do it in the potty”

“There something called Elimination Communication, where you learn to read your little one’s signs from birth and notice when they are having a wee or a poo. I organized a baby fair and met this lady and she had been doing it since her LO was like 3 months. She said every time she saw the signs, she would rush and hold her baby over a potty. She told me from the age of 7 months her baby had not used a nappy, and I met her baby who was 2 years old ..so it does work, just that you have to be beyond vigilant.”

“My son is 2 & he wears his potty on his head so.......”

“My son has issues with poop, when he wants to pee he runs to the “loo” but poop oh my, we fight daily because of that and he's turning 3yrs late this month.”

From my own personal experience, I started Michelle’s toilet training at 2.5 years. She was at the height of her toddler independence so it was very tough. She eventually learned to pee in the toilet. However, for a long time, she was scared of pooping in the toilet. I read about Elimination Communication and even borrowed a video. Some of my friends recommended starting toilet training as soon as a child is comfortable sitting independently.When it comes to preparing your baby for potty use, the start time really depends on your unique family situation...It's a bit like preparing for a marathon. The expectation when one starts training is not to run the full 42Kms...depending on your fitness level, one can start with 5 KMs and increase the distance gradually so that by D-Day, one is able to complete the marathon.

One House, Two Looks?

One of my favorite TV shows, is One House, Two looks hosted by Jane Lockhart and Jason Cass that’s aired on HGTV.  I find it fascinating how they’re able to create 2 completely different designs for identical homes.

Toilet training for my daughters Michelle and Joanne was bit like One House Two looks – the only difference is that instead of getting two different great looks – one of the looks was great whule the other one was – well – ehm not so good. With my first born Michelle, it was stressful, confusing and exhausting. With my second born Joanne, it was relaxed, refreshing and fun. Their personalities are similar in many ways – they’re both independent, focused and intense.

The main difference was that we did not have a clue how to get Michelle “Ready”. With Joanne, we learnt a new intuitive technique that has helped us get her “Ready”.

Confident that we had done everything right and that Joanne was ready, we requested her daycare teachers to start training her. They gave us a questionnaire with 10 questions that they asked us to fill. They indicated that if Joanne scored 8/10 from the questionnaire, she “might” be ready for Toilet Training. According to their assessment, she was “Not Ready”. We were faced with three choices . The first was to agree with them that she was not ready. The second was to pull her out of that daycare and take her to a place where the teachers agreed with our “readiness” perspective. The third option was to prepare her to be “ready”.

We chose the final option. We will get her "Ready" and share our tips on how to get a child "ready" with our friends and other new parents.

A daycare's Potty Training readiness questionnaire

My 21-month daughter is diaper-free at home - except at nap-time and sleep time. She often wakes up dry after a nap.

However, her daycare teachers say she is not ready because she does not get a score of 8/10 in this questionnaire. She has been diaper-free at home for two months now...every morning on a weekday I have to put a diaper on because her daycare teachers insist that she's not ready

I'm SO tempted to pull my daughter out of that daycare...the only reason I can't right now is that I'm working full-time and everything else about the daycare is SO good!!!

PS: I was also very upset by the question just below the questions...

The BIGGEST question is, "Do you REALLY feel your child is ready or are YOU tired of diapers?"

When Joanne was ready for serious toilet training, my husband and I intuitively knew. We followed our intuition and the cues Joanne was giving us. She's doing great at home...However according to these "Experts", she's not.....Do we trust our intuition or do we trust our intuition and our baby's cues?

How I was potty trained

I recently learned from my aunt, Cecelia, that my siblings and I was “lofty” toilet trained.  She described the process in an email. Her email provides a good idea of how the Lofty method works.

“When I was taking care of all of you, I remember we started getting you to sit on the potty as soon as you could sit up. I used to put the potty on my laps and hold you while you sat on the potty. I would then entertain you with stories or sing nice songs to ensure you enjoyed the position. On occasions when you had to “Poop”, we would both push and when it came out, it was victory . We would both shout “Hurray” , clap and laugh. We made Potty use fun.

When my daughters were born, I started using potty as soon as they could sit at around seven months. I placed baby on the potty and held her and played with her. It was so smooth because we made it natural. Since I was working full-time, I asked the nanny to get the baby to sit on the potty every 3 hours, always before feeding.

When baby was one year, I encouraged her to accompany me to the bathroom . I sat on the toilet and baby sat on the potty (at1year).When baby managed to pee or poop, I clapped and said “very vey vey good, that’s a present for mom, mom loves poop”.  Isaac participated fully.

By the time my children were 2 years they would run to potty themselves and they never peed on clothes when awake. Use of potty prevents constipation in children. the siting position helps in healthy emptying of the waste.”

I guess if a cat can learn - so could I :-)