Early Toilet Training

I have lost my mind. Clearly. But with your third child, you tend to do things differently from what the experts tell you. You go by experience and more common sense, than anything else. And I started noticing that my nine-month old was, um, shall we say–regular. Every morning after his bottle, I had to change his diaper. Every. Single. Morning. After a while, it gets old.

It occurred to me, in a state of madness, that I could feasibly drag out the toilet training equipment and throw him on the toilet during his, um, morning habit. One less dirty diaper to change, right? I wasn’t really planning to do much else besides that. And I figured, heck, I can put the child-sized toilet in his bathroom, and he can figure out what it’s for eventually. No rush.

Of course, the very first time I put him on the padded seat that fits onto the adult toilet, I read him stories, sang to him, and Mr. Regular decided not to follow through. Figures. So I thought, oh well. No biggie. I put the seat away, and didn’t worry about it. That night, when I was getting him ready for his bath, I saw him eyeing the child toilet. I stuck him on it, naked, and let the bath water run.

This is a tried-and-true method. They hear running water, they react out of instinct, and when they pee, you cheer and praise them like they have just won a gold medal at the Olympics.

Seriously, I wasn’t thinking it would work with a nine-month-old. I was figuring that it was a convenient place to sit him down while I got the bath going. But sure enough, he went. And I cheered and smiled and clapped. He lifted his baby arms in the air and babbled, “Yay!” (yes, he can actually do this. It’s cute.)

A fluke, right? He’s nine months old. The next night–nada. But the third night, he went again. We cheered, smiled, and said, “Yay!” And then he started to clue in. For the past three nights, I have put his naked bum on the toilet and the child has peed.

The experts would say, a child of his age has no control over his bladder. But my grandmother swears she had all her babies trained at the age of one year, because the next baby was coming and she wasn’t going to change two sets of diapers. This was back in the day when all babies wore cloth diapers. I’m wondering if there’s a bit of country wisdom going on here.

Is it possible? I swear, I’m not pushing him. I’m just getting his bath ready, but when he’s done this 5 out of 6 times, I’m thinking that he knows what’s expected. I even tried it when the water wasn’t running.

What do you think? Am I losing my mind? Or should I try it in the morning as well?