We're moving to stage 2!!

Yesterday, Hannah told me twice in a row that she had to pee! I was pretty excited about that! Her last miss was last week sometime, too!!!!

We had our first potty spill. She peed on her bunny potty in the living room (she didn't want to go this morning, even though her bladder was FULL!!) and I kind of forgot she was on there as I was making breakfast. She brought it over to me and it spilled a little. It was fuller than I've ever seen it, so no wonder there was a little spill!

Getting easy and relaxed!

The other night I realized that I wasn't sure if Hannah had pooped during the day or not. (She doesn't poop every single day.) I realized that I wasn't keeping track anymore, since she so reliably goes on the potty! Basically I just take her when I go and when she gets up from sleeping, and she holds it between potty-tunities! It's so nice! I'm not bugging her or really thinking about it, and she's not resisting because I don't take her too many times. Our last miss was sometime last week, when I thought she was ready to get up from a nap and she wasn't!

Two new developments!

Twice now Hannah has started a pee and told me about it! She will say "pee pee" in a pretty frantic voice, and I'll take her potty and she'll finish. She just pees a tiny bit, and realizes to stop! She did that with poops at first, too, so it's exciting to see her do this with pees now!

Also, today at a restaurant, she said "potty" as we were leaving. So I took her to the regular bathroom, and she sat on the regular toilet and peed! That was a definite first!!! I'm excited that we may be branching out into "real" toilets!!

Pants fit differently, and time to blog!

I have time to blog a little more, now that I'm not doing laundry all the time!!! I don't mind doing laundry, but I don't mind the break, either!

Now that Hannah wears panties, some of her pants don't fit her anymore! The other day we were taking a walk, and she was running down the street and her pants fell down! Fortunately a lot of her pants fit on the snug side anyway. The other ones she can wear when she gets bigger, or if we go out with training pants, I guess! Now I know why they make special pants for EC'ing little ones!

Dry for a week!

Reading over recent posts, I realized that it's been at least a week since her last miss, and I think it's been longer! Yippeee!!!!!!!!!!! She even tells me now when she needs to go. A couple of days ago, I was pretty sick, and decided that I wasn't going to worry about if she went in the potty or not. So she told me when she needed to go! She's done that a couple of times. Very exciting! I quite enjoy this stage!

She used the toilet!

Hannah finally peed on the toilet! I haven't put her on there (with a seat reducer) that often, because she hasn't liked it! Today she was pointing to the seat reducer, and I asked her if she wanted to sit on the big potty. She said "yeah" (I love how she says 'yeah' these days!) and then she peed! It was cool. Now that I think about it, she was expressing interest in the toilet recently, and I told her she could sit on it whenever she wanted to go potty. I wonder if she'll want to sit on it again! She was pretty excited about it! I say "finally" because I was secretly wondering if she was ever going to want to sit on a toilet! So far she just goes potty at home or in the one in the car. It kind of opens up opportunities if she's willing to go in a toilet!

She likes this potty on the floor, and sometimes enjoys reading a book while she's sitting on it!!!

Pottying at night

Well, after over a year of refusing to potty at night, Hannah now will go in her potty when I take her at night. She fusses a tiny bit but goes. I think it helps her sleep more comfortably! It's nice to see that she is no longer refusing night time pottying. The nights of making sure I had 4 night time diapers clean and available seem but a distant memory now!

Staying dry!

This morning before getting out of bed (meaning, it was early morning, and I was hoping Hannah would fall back to sleep) I was thinking about laundry for some reason, and how I hadn't been doing much lately. Then I realized that Hannah has been completely dry for three whole days, and has only had 2 misses in 5 days! The first miss was when we were on the road, and she didn't want to use the potty I offered. The second was night time. So she's staying dry! She did have a random poop miss yesterday, but I'm pretty sure that was a fluke. Dry is good!

The way it's going now is that every time I go, she goes. She's been telling me when she needs to poop for several months now (except for yesterday) and rarely tells me when she needs to pee. Our schedule of going together works!

The great thing is that she goes when I put her on the potty. I've been looking forward to the time when she would go when given the chance, it's a good habit to get into!!! :)

I wasn't sure we'd make it!

We went on vacation last week, and I wasn't sure if I had enough waterproof trainers. We were gone 6 days, and I only have 9 pairs! Prior to our trip, we had been having quite a few pee misses. (No poop misses from 17 months, until today, but that's a different story.) I was thinking of picking up a pack of disposable trainers, just in case, but I didn't see any that I liked at the store. As it turns out, we made it through with only using 6 of them!! Hannah started peeing every time I went potty, and was dry most of the time. Since coming home, we've continued that, her peeing when I do. She's only had two misses in the last 5 days. Pretty neat!! She really seemed to like the "noisy" toilet in our room on vacation. So now she wears panties during the day, and it's pretty cool.

Another "first"!!!!

Today Hannah was nakey bum and took herself potty for a poop! I had left her without pants after she peed in her trainers, and the rest were in the wash. I actually had some "staged" on the couch and ready to put on (they're still there as I type!) but never got around to putting them on. In retrospect, I'm surprised I did that, since she was going on close to 48 hours without a poop; she was definitely due! I noticed that she was on the potty, and sat on it for quite awhile. I decided not to go over there, to just let her sit without me hovering. When she got off, I went to look and there was poop! Yay, Hannah!!!!!!

Too sick to care?

We both had colds last week. It was Hannah's first cold (ever!) and my second cold in a row this season. I was pretty worn down, to say the least! She sure didn't seem to care if she wet her pants, and I was too tired to stay on top of it. I did change her as soon as she wet, but I wasn't helping her to remember to go in the potty!

Follow up from previous post

It's funny I posted that about being more mellow with misses, and noticing that we have almost no poop misses. I think that very day we had a full-blown poop-tastrophe! It was OK, but I was wishing she'd hold still while I cleaned up the mess!

I've changed a lot during this process!

I was just thinking about how much I've changed during this EC journey! Of course I want to try to provide my daughter a place to eliminate when she needs to, but there are times when she just plain doesn't care if she goes in her pants! That bothered me at first, but I have finally figured out that it is not a big deal!! At this point, she will generally tell me immediately when she's peed in her pants, and I can change her. Right now she has a cold, and is definitely not interested in sitting on the potty first thing in the morning. OK! Even with the cold and refusing the morning potty, she still stays mostly dry during the day. In the EC forum people often give the advice to just relax and stay cool and enjoy the process. I think I've learned that! I definitely struggled with that during the 7-ish month poop strike! It's a lot easier to stay calm and relaxed when it's just a missed pee here and there! (So maybe it's a combo of EC getting easier and my attitude changing!) Anyway, it's always interesting!

The phases!

I read about the phases of potty independence, and that really put things into perspective! Here they are:

Phase 1: Staying dry reliably with mom's help
Phase 2: Signalling rather consistently, needing occasional reminders
Phase 3: Independence in going potty
Phase 4: Self sufficient, including wiping

I would put Hannah in the phase 1 category, which is pretty cool! Her entry into that phase was rather sudden, actually! After that 7 month potty pause, it was much appreciated! She's been having more misses lately, with the arrival of the lovely canines, but for awhile there she was having misses only every 3rd day or so. I've gotten pretty lazy with the laundry! No need to make sure I always have lots of clean pants.

She's even been dry almost every night for quite awhile. 2 months? 3 months? I can't remember!

3 times in a row, and taking herself potty!

Last night was quite an evening for us! Hannah told me three times in a row using her word for potty that she had to pee! I thought that was pretty neat, and was planning on writing about it here. Then, she took herself potty!

We were playing on the floor, and she looked down at herself like she does when she either has to go potty, is going potty, or has just gone potty. I think I asked her if she was going, but didn't really think about it, because she had just gone three times. Next thing I know, she's sitting on her potty! I wasn't really paying attention, and didn't even see her climb on. She's sat on it a few times before, more just playing with it and she hasn't ever peed in the one that is in the living room. When she got up, I saw that she had peed in it! So she realized she had to pee, got on the potty, and peed! I'm impressed that she coordinated all that!

This morning she told me she had to go, then refused the potty and ended up going on the floor. Maybe it was because it was early morning, I don't know! It's definitely not a linear progression! I just noticed that we generally only have one miss, maybe two, in a day. She's gone at least a week without a poop miss, which is the first time for that in about 7 months!

She told me she had to poop!!

This is exciting! Hannah told me that she had to poop, before she pooped! She used her word for it, too! I guess she has done that before, if we're laying down nursing or something. This time she did it from across the room! She was sitting in her high chair eating some peas, and I was doing something (silly) on the computer. (I got distracted.) Typically, that would be when she would just poop in her pants. Maybe it was because she was sitting in the high chair, I don't know. (Although that hasn't stopped her before.) So this is a neat development!

We really notice teething!

I have noticed that when Hannah is teething it makes a huge difference! Between teeth, she actually is pretty consistent and we go nakey a lot with few misses. While teething, it's as if she's never heard of a potty! Tooth number 10 popped through a little over a week ago. I was expecting her to get "back on track" any day now, but she's definitely still missing most of the time. She was super cranky tonight, too, so I felt around in her mouth and sure enough, there's number 11 poking through! Usually there is some time between teeth, but these two kind of overlapped. Looking at her one molar that is all the way through, I wonder how she even makes it through the day! It looks like it would really hurt!

Poopy diapers!

Most EC moms will talk about how they especially hate changing poopy diapers, and how they don't usually have to. I know that we did enjoy two whole months without a single poopy diaper; that was MANY months ago!!! My daughter is now 17 months old, and I've been changing poopy diapers and poopy training pants regularly since she was about 10 or 11 months old. Most days, two!!! So much for EC meaning no poopy diapers! That is not the case with us! Some days she definitely gets it, and poops in the potty, and it's very cool. Most days she doesn't! Fortunately I no longer care! She'll poop in the potty when she's ready. She knows how, and I give her opportunities, it's up to her to get the rest.

Another reason I like EC

I have to admit, there have been times along this journey where I didn't like EC, but that's because I really needed to back off and let Hannah be Hannah. Since backing off a few weeks ago, we've had very few misses, actually! One thing I love about EC is that I'm (mostly) able to honor Hannah's preference to be out of diapers. It seems most little ones protest diapers at some point. It's been so easy to just say, "Ok, no diaper then. No biggie." There are times when she's protested and I've insisted, because of night time wetting or whatever, but for the most part we can just leave them off when she doesn't want to wear them. I like that. As I write this, it has been about a week since she's had on a diaper, anyway. We still use training pants, but not often. This goes in cycles with us, that's just where we are right now. The last tim she had on a diaper, it was because she asked me to put it on her! She wore it for about an hour, then I took it off at bath time. She didn't pee in it or anything, just wanted to have it on, I guess!