Sweet Release : Babies Can Potty Train Too

*Note to sensitive readers: this post contains many references to poop, pee, and potty

This post is not a brag. I promise. It is an expression of gratitude for a truly wonderful occurrence. Yasmina, at 14 months, poops in her potty. Only. As in, not in her diaper. Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude.

Although it is a wonderful occurrence, this hasn't happened by accident. Thanks to some wise words I came by when I was pregnant with Jai, both of my kids have peed and pooped in the toilet since they were 5 days old. It was fairly simple- I just held them over the toilet and made a peeing sound. Pssssss...

Jai enjoys his potty at 6 months

Now don't get me wrong. It's not like they didn't wear a diaper and only peed and pooped the potty. Because they did [wear a diaper] and they didn't [only poop and pee in the potty]. (Although I must say that Mina has a history of pooping in the potty. When she was tiny, it was really hard for her to poop lying down, so I had to hold her over the toilet. Even in the middle of the night.)

Thankfully she quickly got over the whole
have-to-get-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-to-poop phase.
This is Mina at 8 1/2 months.

As both kids grew from infant to baby to toddler, they would go through phases of more pottying or less pottying. Before Jai stopped wearing diapers, he too always pooped in the potty (because it was so obvious when he had to go that I could always get him to the potty on time). He was less consistent about peeing up until the time he stopped wearing diapers. He wasn't quite 18 months when the weather turned warm and nice with the beginning of summer. We were outside all the time, so I just stopped putting a diaper on him. After about a week of peeing on himself, he got it.

I'm planning to do the same with Mina. As this post commemorates, we are already halfway to total diaper freedom.

Her learning to poop in the potty is so exciting because she totally understands what she's doing. 100%. I'm not just catching her in the act and putting her on the potty. A couple of weeks ago, when this all started, I thought maybe the potty poops were a blessed coincidence. I would be coming out of the bathroom, and she would run over to me and grunt. Onto the potty and out with the poop.

Now we've had many incidences where she was in a totally different room, ran to the bathroom, and squatted down next to her potty. Onto the potty and out with the poop. I think it's official now.

Family potty time

I don't think my kids are potty prodigies by any means. When you read about parenting in other cultures, you learn that early potty learning is just the natural way things are done. I think it's a great disservice to the majority of American parents (and their children) that we are told babies are not able to learn pottying before the age of 2 (or 3 or 4...) What I've experienced with my own children, and seen with the children of friends, is that babies and small children have an innate knowledge of their bodily functions. We just have to show them where to put it. Of course, this does take some patience, flexibility, and acceptance of the fact that some accidents will happen. But doesn't that describe all aspects of parenting?

All I can say is, I am filled with gratitude every time I don't have a poopy diaper to clean. Thank you, Goddess of Release. May poop always make it into the potty.       *Blessings*