Hip-Hip Hooray! Toilet Learning is Fun! (Part 2)

Three weeks have passed since Tommy started toilet learning. This a long process and so far we are having so much fun, which is what it is making this process a pleasant experience without frustration. I have heard that this process can take about 8 months to master for some typical developmental kids. How long will the process take for us? We don't know, but the most important is that along the process our son learns to read his biological needs.

Successful stories during our potty learning process

We had a family reunion on Friday, October 8th and we came back home late. When I was helping Tommy get ready to go to bed, I noticed his pull-up was dry and it was around 9:00 p.m. He usually has a pee around 7:00 p.m., so I immediately took him to the bathroom and sat him on his potty chair, not even 2 minutes passed when he had a pee. It was an exciting moment because it was obvious he was holding in the urine. So from now own, I will keep our travel potty seat in the bag because I don't want that 'holding in urine or bowel movements' become an issue.

Last night, Tommy did let me know he wanted to go potty. It has been one of the most exciting moments of my life, ha, ha, ha, ha. It was 6:50 p.m. when I was chatting with my mom in Panama. Suddenly, I saw Tommy signing "potty." I was skeptical, but I took him to the bathroom and he had a pee right after he sat on the potty. He had a big smile when he saw my excitement.

Today, he signed potty when we were leaving a local pharmacy. I didn't know where to find a bathroom, so I rough to the house. He didn't go. Well, we went to the dinning room to eat our lunch and he went after lunch. I learned a lesson, we need a travel potty chair to keep in my car because there are not bathrooms everywhere. We have a small portable potty seat that fit in my bag. I use it when I go to the mall and I just put it on the toilet, but if I have a situation again where I don't find a bathroom, a travel potty chair is the best solution.

Turning potty learning in a positive experience

Tommy has learned a new sign 'potty', which allow the communication between us during the potty learning process. He verbally says 'poo' and 'pee,' which he learned when we started potty learning three weeks ago. He thinks go potty is fun because when I ask him to say pee he says it and immediately he claps with a happy face. My son is also learning to pull up and down his underpants. He is transferring this to actually put his pants on. He has been able to put on leg of his pants on all by himself. We play pretend play during potty time. Tommy seat his boy-doll to 'go potty' when he is on potty time. We wipes the boy-dolls bottom when he is done, so this helps Tommy to get ready for a future step in our potty learning process. When he has a great potty time, he puts stickers on his reward sticker book all by himself. Our process of potty learning is more than helping my son to understand his body because it involves expressive communication, language development, self-care skills, fine motor skills, cognition and auditory discrimination between English and Spanish.

Keeping potty learning fun

• Pretend play. I am planning to get new cloth for our boy-doll, so Tommy can practice dressing and undressing the doll.
• Sign a potty song. I am searching for cute potty training songs that I can sing to Tommy during potty time.
• Decorate Tommy's potty chair. Tommy will decorate his potty chair with his assistant (mommy). The theme for the decoration is 'Potty Kingdom' where Tommy is the king.
• Increase our potty learning library. I have seen new books that seems interesting. I will get books with real picture because Tommy is more interested in this type of potty training books.

Enjoy the video of Tommy signing 'Potty'

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Pull-Ups® Big Kid Central® DVD.

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