This is going to be a very long post again, with very few pictures.
In nutshell, this post records Yvette’s Potty Training Journey. It records how I manage to train a 13.5 mths toddler with the habit of sucking for comfort in the night and she co-sleeps on our family bed with us.
I brought forward night training when I kicked off the day training around month ago.
I decided to do so mainly due to the following reasons:
Yvette prefers to pee into the sink, floor and sometimes bowl but hardly sit on the potty. Although Yvette wasn’t making tremendous progress in her day time training, but I guess this won’t hinder us for making this change. She is now able to signal when she wants to pee. (Sometimes she signaled to me after she had peed.) So I still have tons of misses which I guess this is inevitable.
How I manage to do it with her on our family bed?
We brought a thin layer mattress and lay over our bed. Use the waterproof mat as second layer of protection. Wrap Yvette using cloth diaper with a nappy cloth.
And how we were progressing last two nights?
24/07/09 – late night, she was put on the bed at 11 pm.
She peed into the sink twice before she slept. I missed once at 2 plus in the morning. I managed to bring her to pee twice at 4 plus and 7 plus in the morning when she stirred and tossed in her sleep.
25/07/09 – late night, she was put on the bed at 10.30 pm.
I missed once before she dozed off. I missed again at 12 plus in the midnight. Giving signal twice but she never pee during the night. She remained dry throughout the night till 9 am in the morning despite I did nurse her in between her sleep. However I did not catch her pee in the toilet. She got tensed up and refused to release when we were in the toilet. I caught her pee holding onto the nappy cloth while I nursing her in the morning.
The information provided by Ingrid Bauer from her book, Diaper Free! The Gentle Natural Infant Hygiene is so accurate. She claimed breastfed baby behave differently in the day and night. During the day, Yvette will definitely pee 5 to 20 mins after each feed. But in the night, she rarely need to.
I understand that a number of misses are inevitable at the beginning of the process and occasionally at other times. Even a conventionally toilet trained toddler or preschooler may go through many months or even years (8 months average) of transition between beginning toilet learning and becoming mostly “accident” free. Misses are not the norm or the focus, but they are part of the process, whether it’s Natural Infant Hygiene or conventional toilet training according to Ingrid Bauer.
I just hope I can establish a stronger communication with Yvette as we progress.
Not all my training pants were dry up early in the morning but most of them were ready for me to use. Luckily I moved them nearer to my air-con compressor unit that released the hot air which speeds up the drying process. So I decide to kick off my training again. (I know I still don’t have enough training pants to tie me thru two days if it rains the next day.)
With the experiences I gathered yesterday, I told myself not to get frustrated anymore with Yvette. And knowing this change is not easy for Yvette to cope too.
I recorded her “toileting pattern” and this was the progress today.
| Time | Task | Interval |
| 10.15 am | After Bath, having breakfast | - |
| 10.40 am | She peed on the bathroom floor | 25 mins |
| 10.40 am | I gave water | - |
| 11.10 am | Play time – First miss | 20 mins |
| 11.45 am | Play time – Second miss | 15 mins (After water effect?) |
| 12.05 am | Play time – Third miss | 20 mins |
| 12.30 noon | Lunch at 12.15 noon – Miss again | 25 mins. (Should have delay lunch?) |
| 1.00 pm | Peed on the bathroom floor | 30 mins |
| 1.10 pm | Miss again | 10 mins (Drinking breastmilk) |
| 1.35 pm | Miss again – She dozed off | 25 mins (Drinking breastmilk) |
| 1.40 pm | I changed her diaper cloth | - |
| 3.00 pm | She woke up and peed in the bowl | 1hr 20 mins |
| 3.30 pm | Woke up and peed in the bowl | 30 mins |
| 4.00 pm | Miss. I changed her into her pull-up and went United Square with her | 30 mins (I was planning to bring her to toilet to pee, but I wasn’t fast enough.) |
| 6.30 pm | We spent 2 hrs in united square and gotten her some Bumwear. I changed her to training pants when we were home. She peed into the potty for the first time. | 2hr 30mins in pull-up |
| 7.00 pm | Bring her to pee. | 30 mins |
| 7.00 pm | Dinner time | - |
| 7.30 pm | Peed into the bowl | 30 mins |
| 8.00 pm | Peed on the bathroom floor | 30 mins |
| 8.30 pm | Peed on the bathroom floor | 30 mins |
| 9.00 pm | Peed on the bathroom floor | 30 mins |
| 9.00 pm | Bath and sleeping time | - |
Overall I noticed Yvette couldn’t hold her urine after drinking water or breast milk.
On our trip to United Square with Yvette, I realized I can’t be “Wonder Woman” anymore. Last time I still manage to be able to carry a lot of stuffs plus carrying Yvette. But today I experienced great difficulty. Yvette always wanted to be on the ground and I brought too many things. It’s so hard to keep her in my arm. I am trying very hard to lug those stuffs I brought back home by taking a bus. Luckily the bus wasn’t very crowded. If not…. 
Stuffs I brought
Mothers play a vital role in the potty training, which is one of the most important and fundamental aspects in growing process of a baby, whether it is a boy or girl. This job is nasty, miserable and frustrating one. There is no escape from this. As such, I don’t want to pass this task to another caregiver of Yvette when I going back to work or she is ready for training. Although Yvette is never fuss over soiled diaper since she was a baby. I still keep on to my decision to train her once she turns one. However, things don’t go according to my plan. Yvette was having a hard time due to teething and it has made me to decide to let potty-training to take backseat for last month.
This month, Yvette’s poop-ing routine has gone back to normal. Eg, most of the time she poops in the morning. As such, I decide to do some “part-time” training with her. This
Last Tuesday, I did a 4 hours training with Yvette in the evening. It was a nightmare. In less than an hour, Yvette had used up 4 training pants. It had shown how inexperience I was. I only brought 6 pieces of BrightBots training pants.
The next day I went to Kiddy Palace to buy more training pants for Yvette. I brought some diaper cloth too.
A few days ago (couldn’t remember when), I did another “part-time” training with Yvette. This time, it was much better. We did not run out of training pants and I have less “miss”.
Today, I did a full day training with Yvette and ended up with this. Full bamboo of training pants and diaper cloth. (For training pants, currently I have 6 BrightBots (size S), 4 oversize Benbeni (3 L, 1 XL) and 3 other assorted brands. I got 6 Benbeni Velcro Fastening diaper cloth. Personally I like this a lot. It can hold one pee without leaking.)
The training pants
And what have I learnt from today session?
I started putting Yvette on her pant after her bath. Yvette peed 30 mins later. The first miss! I changed her into a clean training pant and started to time her again. Unfortunately, I missed again. She urinated. There is no sign or cue to me at all. But I managed to catch one pee by timing her pattern.
At 11 am, I brought her out to the market using a diaper cloth. I observed her peeing pattern was like every 20 to 30 mins interval. I decided to take a risk it as this diaper cloth is super absorbent.
About 11.25 am, we backed home and I brought Yvette to the bowl to pee. She refused and was kicking a great fuss over it. I brought her down from the bowl and let her peed on the bathroom floor.
I cleaned her and dressed her on the training pant again. This time I have forgotten to time her. I was busying preparing her lunch and forgotten she was diaper-less. We have a few miss-es. I had gotten angry with her unwillingness to cooperate with me. I changed her pant as long as it was wet. She cried most of the time when I was trying to change her pant. The idea was to keep dry.
I fed her lunch at around 12.30 noon. She didn’t eat much. Could it due to potty training? She was cranky.
At 1 pm, she dozed off.
Yvette in Diaper Cloth
I placed her on the waterproof pad from Baby Mall Online. And she was wearing the cloth diaper. I checked on and off to ensure she was dry and surprisingly, she stayed dry for 1.5hr. However, I didn’t manage to catch any pee when she woke up. She peed immediately right her eye was opened.
The afternoon was a disaster. I didn’t catch any. I kept changing her training pants. She became frustrated, so was I.
I ended the training when her father was back in the evening.
I gathered from this session, the longest she was dry was during the 1.5 hrs nap. Actually her nap-time was shorten. Could it due to potty training? Her interval of each pee-ing session was usually 20 to 30 mins although sometime she can be dry for about 40 mins. And most of the time, she shown no sign or cue she wants to pee.
Will I continue the training tomorrow?
My answer will be Depend. (I want to start when Yvette is 14mths) If the training pants will dry by tomorrow, I will continue the training with her again. But I think I need more training pants. I need go United Square tomorrow to get some Bumwear to prepare for longer training duration when we are out.
The battle ended, full bamboo of training pants
P/S: Here is a good article I Google
