new bathroom adventures

According to the experts, Julianna is too young to start potty training now. But I am more than ready. I certainly don’t want to start too early though and end up doing more harm than good, as they say can happen. I did however, buy a potty seat and go ahead and put it in the downstairs bathroom. Well, this has been interesting.

Without any prompting she always walks in the bathroom when I go in there. I started saying to her, “Mommy has to go potty.” She would just watch.

One day she tried to put her hand down in the potty right after I stood up so I told her firmly, “No, Julianna. We don’t play in the potty.” I showed her the other potty and told her, “This is your potty.” She pointed at it that day and said, “Anna.” So I knew she understood (even though she hasn’t said “Anna” since).

For a week or so after that she didn’t much mess with it. Then one day about ten days ago she came in the bathroom when I was using it and she sat down on her potty without any encouragement at all. So I started describing to her what I was doing. She started mimicking what I was doing (i.e stand up and close the lid). I didn’t tell her what to do. I just told her what I was doing and she did it too.

Now every time I go to the bathroom downstairs, without fail she sits on her potty seat and kicks her legs a bit. Then she stands up and closes the lid. She also rushes over to the big toilet and tries to flush after I’ve already done it. I know this is nowhere near potty training, but I think it’s a good start that she created herself. Here are two pictures of her on her birthday “using the potty.”