transition from EC to PLing??

[abharrington]

so is there such a thing...how does the last part of EC, up to "graduation" usually go? dd is 14 months and we part time ec. we catch 90% of bms and probably 50 or so % of pees. she loves to go on the potty and will sometime ssignal. mostly i am just too lazy to taker her all the time. :blush: we always do after she wakes up and eats and other than that, it just depends on the day.

so ...i am wondering how/when/if it will transition to PLing? actually, i am trying to decide how many diapers to invesnt in and for how long we might need them. :giggle2: :giggle2: dc #2 is on the way, so i'm sure they will all get used again...just curious.

so...tell me your lo's story...how did they graduate?

[aTrendyTotsMom]

I am in the exact same situation as you!!!! So many people say that Braelynn is "potty Trained" but she's not, I am! I just "know" when she needs to go and I sit her on the potty. She loves going potty in the big potty, and I give her an m&m when she is succesful, so I think she will get the hang of it sooner than later. Braelynn rairly tells me she needs to go potty, but if I ask her she will say "Tee-tee mamma!" Sometimes she will run to the bathroom if she realises that she needs to go and I don't take her. I've cleaned up lots of puddles right in frount of the potty. She will not use on of those little pottys, and she can't climb up on the big potty by herself, so she is totaly dependent on me to help her.
I just say we should keep doing what we are doing, adn they will get it way sooner than non-cd'ed kids their age!

[abharrington]

hehehe....my mom did the same thing with me. she said she was the one "trained" not me, at 18 months. i'm sure dd will get the hang of it eventually....i do enjoy how much she enjoys using her little potty...so sweet. sometimes after she goes, she does the sign for thank you.

[Green Decals]

Rory is completely PLed, he will be 17 months tomorrow. We were ECing part-time, and I was exactly where you were three months ago, 90% of poops and 50% or so of pees. We just started taking him at regular intervals, or as regular as we could think of (we both work full-time and he's in the office with us full-time). Eventually we got sick of putting the same dry diaper on him (we were using prefolds) and so we just switched to regular undies. Sure, once in a while we would clean up a mess, but that's just how it goes. He has never used a little potty, always the big one, with the Baby Bjorn toilet seat thingy. At night he's in regular undies, too, though the last few nights he has peed the bed. We never signaled to him, he always claps his hands when he needs to go (we didn't know the sign for toilet, so we made up our own and he modified it into a clap). When he does go in his pants we tell him that he needs to put his pees in the potty, not in his pants. When he pees on the floor we give him a towel and he cleans it up - we follow with cleaner, but he actually does a decent job. There's nothing punitive about it and nothing negative at all, even if he pees his pants three times in a row. We just remind him to tell us and where his waste belongs - in the toilet. There is a really good book that we found (after the fact, of course, but everything in it we already did, which was cool) called Early-Start Potty Training by Linda Sonna that we recommend to people who can't believe that our son isn't in diapers ("oh, so you just use Pull-Ups?" - NO, we don't bathe our son's genitals in toxins, he wears regular underwear, thank you).

[abharrington]

"oh, so you just use Pull-Ups?" - NO, we don't bathe our son's genitals in toxins, he wears regular underwear, thank you.

:giggle2: :giggle2: :giggle2: rofl

thanks for the encouragement...its just what i needed. and thanks for the book rec...i'll have to check it out.

#2 will be here in nov and by then dd will be 22 months and oh how i would LOVE to be pl'ed by then. :giggle2:

[sisterof10]

Great book recommendation! It was one of the first I read back when I started EC'ing.

I think that the best way to transition is just to slowly help your LO to become more and more independent concerning the potty. So instead of scooping her up, hold her hand and run with her to the potty. And once she can do that, then when she tells you she needs to go, encourage her to run with you just a bit behind, etc, until she can run in, pull down pants, and sit down all by herself. Or instead of asking if she needs to go, ask her if her undies are dry. That way when she realizes that she needs to go (to keep her undies dry), it will be her idea and not yours.

Good luck! PL'ing after EC'ing is soooooooooooo much easier than doing it after 'diaper learning' your child. :)

[pixiepunk]

honestly i think it's just a natural progression and it will happen when it happens. there just came a point, with both my kids, where they just started initiating more and so i felt like i needed to offer less.

also, i guess it sort of depends on what you consider 'graduated' - to what degree do you want them to be independent? totally going of their own accord, pulling down pants, wiping when necessary, getting redressed, flushing toilet - all on their own? Because honestly, my DD is almost 5 and sometimes she still likes me to go with her, help her with complicated clothing, or help her wipe if she's had a poo. i will also often ask her to use the potty before we leave the house on a long drive, or if i know we're headed somewhere that it won't be easy to get her to a potty if she needs to go. but she was 'graduated' IMO by the time she was about 26 months (and practically there with just the occasional miss for at least 6 months before that) because there were virtually no misses and for the most part she initiated by telling me she had to go to the potty.

so i say just keep doin what you're doin, your child will let you know when they are ready to take more control.

[MamaJoyful]

I read that book too. It's worth the read.

I have a 19 month old dd who is really not initiating lately, but she does know exactly when she pees or poos in her dipe. I keep telling my DH that is progress, but he's not so convinced. My DH says "that EC stuff didn't work." But I keep at it and hope that she'll PL soon. He does laugh when I pee the baby though. He thinks it's cool. And, he finally got the baby to go for him. I think he was proud. :mrgreen:

I wish our culture were more encouraging of early potty learning. I really think that with expectations they could train a lot earlier. But it's hard when you have to have all eyes on you when you're trying to train a 1 yr old. Or...gasp...a newborn! Now that is fun! I'm hoping my newborn will learn better since he's being trained since birth. We'll see if it makes any difference.

Hang in there and just do what you can. Try not to stress about the days when she is totally missing everything, or the days when you're too busy to care for her potty needs on the potty. It's ok. Babies are so forgiving. :goodvibes: Hope all continues to go well for you!

[newdsmomma]

I had a similar question a little while back (posted "How to proceed from here") so I'm glad to see this thread now. My little one is 20 months now and has been doing 100% of her poops and 50-60% of her pees in the potty AT HOME, but not at daycare. At home, she has been telling me when she needs the potty (she says and signs "potty") and is never wrong (although she sometimes says she needs the potty just after she's peed instead of just before) for the past 4 months, but she never tells the folks at daycare. At my request, they sit her on the potty with each diaper change, but she only sits for about 30 seconds and tells them "all done" instead of using the potty (which is not actually that surprising, since they only put her on the potty at a "scheduled" diaper change and she never tells them she needs the potty like she does at home).

I got so much flack for starting her on the potty at 12 months, and now that she is so successful, everyone wants to know why she is still in diapers. When she started using the potty more reliably, I switched from prefolds/covers to AIOs so it would be fast and easy on/off for pottying, but since she can't actually pull her pants on or off yet (we've tried with PJs, leggings, and some trainers I bought), it seems to me there is no rush to get her into panties or even pull up waterproof trainers. I have been wondering, though, if I put her in panties/trainers, if it would encourage her to use the potty at daycare, but I don't want to push her or frustrate the daycare providers, since they are cooperative to a point, but still working within a system that doesn't expect to be attentive to the pottying needs of such young toddlers.

I have put her in waterproof trainers a bit at home, but quite honestly, I don't think she differentiates between diapers and the trainers, which is kind of too bad since I ordered 6 waterproof trainers from the EC Store several weeks ago which have yet to arrive. If they don't arrive soon, they may wind up FSOT on this site without even being used!!!

So, how long have folks gone on just being grateful they have no more poopy diapers to swoosh in the toilet and continued putting their little potty users in diapers after they have learned to initiate and use the potty reliably at home? Just wondering.