In my last post on infant potty training when my baby was 9 months old, I thought that the reason that my baby stopped signaling me that he needed to pee or poop was because he was distracted from just learning to crawl… but I was wrong!  Two things were happening– the first was that he had picked up a yeast infection type of diaper rash through breastfeeding when I became pregnant and I went through a hormonal change.  The second was that he was “telling”me when he needed to go, but I just didn’t recognize it.

So the thing with the diaper rash was that it was really uncomfortable for him and he was irritable and crying from being in pain.  His sounds for needing to pee and his sound for being uncomfortable were the same and I just thought it was all about the rash.  I didn’t want to force the potty training thing, so I let it go for a while and he just peed in his diaper and he would cry from the rash being even more uncomfortable when he was wet.

I hadn’t given up, but I just thought that maybe my baby was taking a break from the potty training and going through a phase.  Luckily my husband kept up his diligent routine of taking the baby to the potty whenever he complained.  I realized that he was catching his pees because he was listening and responding to the complaining.  He also found that my baby boy prefers to pee standing up and would often do that outside on command.  After seeing it work for my husband, I tried it and it worked.  I realized that I wasn’t giving my baby enough “pee opportunities”, but when I would give him the chance to try to pee, he often would.  It made sense to have him pee after waking up, before we went out, after arriving at a destination by car, or a little while after eating and drinking.  I think also what discouraged me from giving him consistent pee opportunities was the fact that he is getting heavy (about 27 lbs.) and it is hard for me (especially as a pregnant person) to hold him over a public toilet or over some bushes outside.  But now, if I can just have him stand and lean up against a tree, he and I are happier and it seems to work.

So the thing to remember is that it is about communication with your child and the way he or she communicates his or her need to go will change as they age.  It is our job to continue to listen and try to decipher the ever changing language.

I am thankful my husband has been dedicated to this practice and I still think it is the best thing for my baby to feel that he is being understood when he says “he needs to go”.

My baby is close to turning a year old soon and I don’t expect him to be out of diapers any time very soon, but again, that is really not my goal.  I feel that if he continues to communicate when he needs to go then he will continue to be aware of when he needs to go and then I’m hoping that maybe when he is able to walk, he’ll just walk over to the potty and pee on his own.

I’ll keep you posted….