Emily is Potty Trained

I am very proud to say that Emily is potty trained at 18 months. It was actually 6 months ago when we realize that Emily is fully potty trained or toilet learned.

When ever she wants to pee she will say 'shi shi' or 'emm emm' & make the funny face, then will bring her to the toilet or get the potty for her. I can't remember when was the last time that she accidentally pee on her cloth diaper during the day time. It was actually when Emily was 18 months old, and I was still pregnant with Valerie at that time, she told me that she wanna 'emm emm' and make that funny face that she wanted to poop. We were sitting on the floor and I was not able to get up to get the potty for Emily. Emily ran to the toilet and bring out her potty and put it in front of me. She still does not know how to take off her own pants so I helped her to take off her pants and she will do her business there.

Here are a few tips on potty training methods that I am happy to share with all:

When Emily is still a infant

• When Emily is almost 1 months old, she will actually response to the "shhhh shhh" sound when she put her on the potty. It is to our surprise that she would actually response to it as we thought it was a coincident that it happened. So my mommy actually show me again that Emily was able to urinate and response when she makes the "shhhh shhhh" sound !! And again she urinate on the potty. It is very amazing that a small baby can actually understand and response to that.
• Consistency - Every time when Emily wakes up from her afternoon nap, and if she does not pee in her cloth diaper, the first thing that we will do is to bring her to the potty (or bring the potty to her) and "shh shh" her. I have to THANK both my parents who actually have a very good habit of training Emily on this, so every time she wakes up she get her potty training. Personally I think that this has becomes a habit that Emily 'automatically' knows that she needs to urinate in the potty when she wakes up.

When Emily becomes a toddler

• During Emily's toddler hood, when she is around 12-15 and she is able to walk on her own, we actually started to educate & remind her that she will need to urinate on the potty. When ever she urinate on her CD, we will put the CD into the potty, and tell her that you will need to "shh shh" in the potty. Of course, this is an easy task, we keep on reminding her on that and every time she was to pee, she eventually know how to say and we will remove her CD and let her urinate in the potty. Since Emily is wearing CD, it is easy to take off and easy to put on again. At this time she is able to understand what is right and what is wrong.
• It is important to have a consistent schedule. It is important to know your child capability. Normally we will have a quite consistent schedule when to ask Emily if she needs to 'shh shh' or not. It is around 2 hours each day that we will actually sit her on her potty and ask her to urinate.
• During the process we will give encouragement. We will usually stay with her till she has finished her business and give her an applause that she has done a good job ! She will response back with a cheeky smile and recognize her accomplishment as well. It is very important to give the positive encouragement to encourage the habit.
• Starting around 18 months onwards, she is already out of her CD and during the day time, she will be wearing the panties and walk around the house. No more CD in the afternoon except nap time. We wanted her to sleep well during her nap, so will still put on the CD for that but most of the time from my personal experience if she does not have dream, she will not urinate in the CD. Sometimes accidents happens especially when Emily is too tired or too excited (till she sort of forgets) Remember it is important not to 'scold' her when the accident happens as they will still need time to learn how to control their bowel movement. During the small accidents, the training pants will be a good solutions to avoid wet floors.
• During the night time, she will still be wearing CD but before she wears the CD and goes to bed, we will potty her again.
• When Emily is around 20 months, she actually does not need to wear training pants of CD at night anymore. The consistent habit of letting her urinate at potty before she sleeps, (that's the last thing that she will do) and then the first thing when she wakes up in the morning, is to potty train her again. It is actually quite amazing that when she wakes up in the morning, she has a huge amount of urine inside the potty but she knows how to "hold" the urine and not accidentally pee in the CD anymore.

The most important training is consistency and also educating your toddler that they can do it. Just lead by example and role model. Keep on reminding her that she needs to tell mama and papa that she needs to go toilet and we will bring her there.

Now, we have already started the same potty train Valerie and she has the same good response as her sister Emily :)