How long do you wait?

[Mara'sMommy]

I just started ec'ing dd last week. First try and we caught a pee and poop!!!!! I was sooooo happy. Then I showed everyone I knew including my grandmother who couldn't believe it and now she's telling everyone!! Anyway, that was my excitement taking over.....

How long do you hold your lo over the potty if they haven't gone yet? I notice dd gets fussy after about 3 mins and I take her off, then she pees right away. But if I wait and try to get her to pee on the potty she won't and just cries. This doesn't happen ever time because we've caught pees a bunch of times, too. Just occasionally and I wonder of I'm holding her too long and maybe I should do it at shorter intervals more frequently? I also wondered if the position was uncomfortable.

Anyway, what do you all think?

[jessicah]

I hold about a minute... unless I think a poo is coming, then I wait several minutes.

If I think baby should need to pee, but wont within a minute, I remove the baby from the potty but continue to hold the baby for a few more minutes. Then I go back to the potty and try again.

As they get older and discover knew things, it always seems that they can get distracted easily on the toilet. My little one gets distracted by the bathroom nightlight and her own reflection in the mirror and she is only 8wks... so an older baby may be even more easily distracted.

I always use a cue sound: ssss for pee and "poop" for poo. I dont know for sure if that makes a difference, but it always seems like it does.

[Tweedledum]

Three minutes seems like a really long time to me! I always ask as I'm putting DS on the potty, "Do you need to go potty?" then I sing the ABCs once, and if he's going to pee, he usually does by the time I get to the letter T. If I am expecting a poop, I may also count to thirty after singing the ABCs. I figure that's about one minute, right? My 4 year old DD sings and counts with me.