Monday, August 3, 2009

Potty Training Poll

The results are in! It looks like most of our boys were trained by age 3 -- but also that there's a wide variation in ages for potty training.

christinemm had a question, though, and she brings up a good point:

A note on the poll on potty training. I wonder if people misunderstood your word "by"?I take it if my son was trained at age 3 yrs 1 month I'd vote "by age 4". Every boy I know was trained while 3 years old, or four and one older than that due to having severe autism and being nonverbal.I cannot believe that even 5% of boys were totally toilet trained when only one year old. Refuse to believe it.

She's right: I probably should have been more clear about "by." But I was one of the five people who voted for "by age 2," and I did indeed have a son who was potty trained by one-and-a-half.

I had no intention of potty training Boy #3 before age two, but he apparently had other plans. Maybe it was because he had older brothers. Maybe it was because he has fabulous motor control; he walked early and now at age six, is athletically coordinated beyond his years.

Whatever the reason, though, when he asked to sit on the potty at a year-and-half, I listened.

I broke a lot of the "rules" with him. He didn't have words to tell me he needed to go on the potty; at a year-and-a-half, he wasn't talking much at all. Instead, he used his own signs and gestures and sounds to let me know when he wanted to go.

He couldn't pull his own pants up and down yet either. And he was so small that I literally had to hold him on the toilet set. He woudln't have passed this quiz, designed to help determine whether your child is ready for potty training.

But I didn't look at the quiz or the expert advice. I looked at my child, and he wanted to try going on the potty. I had no expectations of him whatsoever -- my plan, after all, had been to wait until he was at least two before even introducting the potty -- but it turned out that he was ready.

Anyone else? Who else had a son who was potty trained by age two?

4 comments:

  1. I didn't vote in the poll...didn't realize it was going on. My oldest was one of those early guys. He was potty-trained before he was a year old!! We didn't expect it or even encourage it. He just started potty-training on his own and we, thinking it was just a fleeting adventure, helped him get on and off the toilet (he wouldn't DREAM of using a little potty either).

    My 2nd and 3rd sons had both just turned three when they decided to potty-train.

    I assume my 4th son, who is 16 months, will be three like the older two.

    I imagine my first baby boy was unusual in his timing. =)

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  2. Looking forward to hearing more stories.

    I didn't vote in the poll as I was too late.

    My older was 3.5 and I forced it on him. It took a week of training and no use of pull-up's in the process and he was done and never an accident. And no night toileting and never a night accident. Hooray!

    My younger wanted to train at 26 months but didn't have the control for it and was holding his BMs in. I was following his lead but he was refusing to have a BM until day 5. He cycled like that for weeks, very frustrating for all of us "I have to go" & have him sit on the toilet for a long time & nothing happening. I gave up as I feared he'd injure himself by holding it in! We restarted some months later and he was done. Funny now I can't remember if he was still 2 at the time or an early 3. Weird that by following his lead at a younger age, the whole thing was dragged out longer & night wetting in pull-up's happened for years.

    Every child is different.

    My main goal was to not have it all be a power struggle and to do it when their body and mind was ready. But with older one, all the signs were there but he just liked using the diaper (gross at almost age 4). I had enough. One note on that kid for years later I can report he holds onto routines and traditions and resists change or any new thing. Hmmm.

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  3. I voted in the poll, but only once - I have two boys. My boys were independently using the potty without misses shortly after age 1. But we did EC (which I wrote a book about- The Diaper Free Baby), which actually, in some ways, you did too by following your boy's cues and knowing how to communicate with him even though he was preverbal.

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  4. I am actually still potty training, and it is nice to read from peole who have already been here(: Isaac is aabout 2 and 8 months old, and he is getting dramatically better. I know for a fact he could have been easily pottytrained probably more than a year ago, but I am such a young parent, and I think I was being kind of lazy, or just didn't expect it to come so fast. I did not know about the pole either(:
    If anybody would like to read about my potty training and maybe give me some advice??
    http://yovia.com/blogs/kimberly/2009/08/05/potty-training/

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