Potty Update

So, life has been busy lately! It’s been almost a month since I took a week off of work to potty train Orlaith. She’s been doing remarkably well! I think like any child, she has good days and bad days. When she does have accidents, it is because she is so engrossed in what she is doing that she forgets to stop. No biggie!

On the big potty party day, we ditched her cloth diapers for cloth training pants. It made sense for us to go from cloth to cloth. Even if you don’t cloth diaper, you should consider cloth training pants. It is not a good idea to use disposable diapers or pull ups once you begin potty training because they pull moisture away from your child’s skin. One of the important pieces to potty training, is that they feel and know when they are wet! Plus, putting them in disposables/pull ups is confusing. I went all out. We used cloth trainers exclusively, even when we left the house (which took 5 days).

I knew not to expect night training right away. I still use a cloth diaper at night, but that is the ONLY time. She wears cloth trainers for her nap, and has yet to have an accident during nap time. I have to say that I am SO proud of my little honey! We are getting there. Even though there is typically at least one accident a day, I consider her potty trained. We are just fine tuning at this point!

Communication and Elimination

In other Orlaith news, she is growing leaps and bounds in the communication department. In the last 2 weeks, her vocabulary has exploded. She is starting to repeat new words like crazy. I have been trying to keep count, and I think we are up to 50-60 words now. Some of her newest words include alligator, hot dog, bow, bubbles, hurry, yay, eat, agua (Spanish for water) and Elmo! In addition to that, she also has around 50 ASL signs.

She has also been learning colors. Right now her favorite is purple, with yellow as a close second. We have been working on her ABC’s too. She has had the tune down for 3-4 months, but now she can say a lot of the letters. Her ABC’s go something like this “A, B, C, D… L, M, N, O, P”. It is pretty cute! We are trying to fill in the blanks. She will get it when she is ready!

We have been pre-training for the potty since she was 15 months. The pre-training consists of several tactics to get her familiar and comfortable with the potty. Luckily, we use an in-home daycare so her pre-training is being reinforced while she is there. If we were in a regular daycare, she wouldn’t be in the right class for potty training. Orlaith took to the potty the first time we put her on and she peed! Since then we try to put her on the potty at least 6 times a day. We also read potty books and watch a potty video. I know a lot of parents do not let their kiddos watch TV. We didn’t either, but made an exception for potty learning. It turned out to be a big help. I have taken the last week of June off of work, so we can have our Potty Party day and officially potty train. Orlaith will be 18 months old, and more than ready by then. This link outlines the basic method we are using.

It has kind of been freaking me out to think that I have less than 2 weeks left of cloth diapering. I know it is a logical next step for us, but I will miss the cloth diapers I have grown to love. I think a lot of cloth diapering mamas can relate to my feelings. If not, I promise I am not crazy for missing diapers! I also know that this is the last piece of being a baby that Orlaith still has, and it is about to be gone. It is hard to face the facts that my “baby” is not really a baby anymore. Sigh. Here goes nothing!