Potty Training????

I went to a "Potty Party" on Tuesday night at Peacock Organics, a local natural kids store where I purchase many of the cloth diapering items. It was a home business kind of party promoting "Potty Training Made Easy with the Baby Signs Program". We have borrowed the "Baby Signs" DVD from my Sister-in-Law, Karla, so the characters were familiar to me.

The idea behind this program is to equate going to the potty with being on a train. It promotes using tons of praise (which I think all the different potty training options do), when the child goes to the bathroom on the potty to then blow the train whistle (that comes in the kit), if they sit on the potty and don't go to the bathroom they get a sticker. The kit also has a board book for the toddler and a DVD that teaches them the signs (which he already knows) and shows them cartoon kids using the potty. I didn't buy the $40 kit, but walked away with some ideas. The program states that kids can be potty trained by age 2. It is sometimes hard to wade through all the claims that are out there.

The woman mentioned that in the 50's cloth diapers were all that were availible and so kids were potty trained by 18 months. She went onto say that with the invention of the disposable diaper they have become larger and larger in size and so parents don't potty train as early, that they wait until age 3 or 4. I found this concept interesting and I would like to see if it backed up by other research b/c it didn't fully make sense to me.

I had to go to Babies R Us right after that to grab something, so I bought a potty with a coupon I had, I rarely remember to go when the dates on the coupon are valid. So I put the potty out downstairs and Logan explored it the next morning. He was interested in it when he came downstairs for breakfast, but I had to show him to sit on it, I gave him a sticker and then we blew the train whistle which we have. He liked that. But then he wanted to stand on it, so I have been working on teaching him to sit on it. I ended up having to put it away b/c it was a day where I was fighting a headache and all he wanted to do most of the morning was try and stand on the potty, even though I was trying my best to praise and teach him to sit.

I was able to get the "Once Upon a Potty" from another freecycler (a yahoo group that is kind of like a free tag sale). I am going to watch the video first to see what I think. I may just be starting to soon. He seemed to meet the criteria on the lists I have looked at for when they are ready to start potty training.