Real-Life EC: 15/16th Month

Its been a crazy spring so-far and I missed last months post, so I will try to cover two in one here!
​There have been a lot of ups and downs over these last two months, but overall much progress has been made! For starters, we have slowly been stopping the use of diapers in the daytime. At home I would say he is diaper-free (generally in cotton training pants) 90% of the time. But more importantly, he is staying dry a lot of the time at home also. The last few days in particular he has had very few accidents, but then again he hasn't been drinking much (despite my offers). This little guy prefers to play with his food and water. 

Alek is not signalling in general, though there have been a few times that he either indicated to me after he had pooped, or has nodded or shaken his head "no" when I have asked if he needed to go pee. Of course, asking IF a toddler needs to go to the bathroom is generally a no-no, but as long as he is truthful about it, we'll keep it up! ​He is very verbal - imitates almost anything, and can easily say pee and poop, but rarely, if ever, uses them to let us know he needs to go. He has use the sign for potty a couple of times this month.

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Big-sister G (she's almost 7) has been getting into the potty training role a bit more, leading to some adorable and funny moments! First, there was the day that she locked herself and Alek in my bedroom. I asked if she could let me in, after fumbling with the handle for a minute, she swung the door open, and I see a folded towel on the floor with the blue top-hat potty on it. Sitting on the potty is Alek, mid-pee but his penis is pointing over the side of the bowl and he's fully peeing on the floor, LOL! Apparently the little guy had said "pee!" to her so she set it all up :) I didn't get a photo of that one, but the one I did capture for your viewing pleasure, is the day that I was baking in the kitchen and heard her cueing him with a "psss psss" noise. Followed by the noise of him jumping on his baby trampoline. What the heck?? Yep, she invented the potty-bouncer, and he did actually pee in it! 

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Introducing the Potty-Bouncer!

Our first diaper-free trip outside of the house! A is wearing his Tiny Ups with Tiny Undies underneath.

I have really noticed that Alek is keeping dry when we are out-and-about. Its been about 3 weeks since I have started making a consistent effort to use non diaper back-ups outside of the house and accidents are rare! This is partly due to the fact that I am more conscious of each pottytunity and keeping track of timing, since its quite inconvenient to have an accident at a store or on a walk, than it is in my warm livingroom with all the potty and changes of undies and clothes right there. But I think the main difference is that Alek is SO HAPPY to be out in the world and he rarely puts up a fuss at potty-time. At home its often the pants full of pee (and oftentimes poop!) 2 minutes after getting off the potty. I cannot even tell you how many times I have missed a pee or just given a pottytunity and he sat there quite happily but didn't do anything, and then under 2 minutes later a big poop in his undies. On that note, he still poops 2-3 times per day, and while I am confident that we are catching more poops in the potty than we were 2 months ago, its still disappointing how many I have to clean out of his undies or training pants :(  Stealthy this kid is, I tell you.

Around the middle of March I had again tried night-time pottying, but he wants nothing to do with it. Thankfully towards the end of March Alek started staying dry all night most nights, which was surprising because the month before he had been wet almost every night. Unfortunately towards the end of April Alek started resisting the final pee before he goes to sleep at night, so wet diapers have become more common. 

We still have a ways to go, but the nearly accident-free days are happening more and more often. The only down-side is that sometimes peed-in undies or diapers are being left for more and more days! Definitely need to look at my washing routine as we have fewer and fewer misses. Its a good problem to have!

How is EC or potty training going for you? Any funny moments to share?

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