To say we have a relaxed attitude to potty training Lydia is an understatement. With Georgie, we fretted slightly that she wasn’t trained early enough, we tried pull ups, choose your own potty outings, potty picture-reveal-when-you-wee stickers, reward stickers, books about toilet training, the occasional chocolate button bribes, character panties, dry like me pads, and running around half naked all day days*. With Lydia, we are just leaving our army of potties dotted around the house, and letting her and Georgie get on with it as they like.
You could probably say that Georgie is putting more effort into potty training Lydia than anyone else. Our eldest girl takes her big sister duties very seriously.
Yesterday, Georgie went to the toilet and Lydia followed her, declaring “I need the potty!” – Georgie said “Ok!” and took her into the downstairs toilet with her, closing the door behind them with purpose and a look to me that clearly said “you are not needed”. A few minutes later, Georgie opened the door and proudly called out to me “Lydie’s done a wee-wee!”
Sure enough, I went in to help clean up, and there were two very proud girls, a full potty, and Lydia’s trousers and nappy abandoned on the floor. Georgie told me all about it, using extravagant arm gestures to demonstrate how she had unpoppered her little sister’s vest and taken off her nappy.
Lydia is probably asking to use the potty 3 or 4 times a day with mixed success. We aren’t putting any pressure on her – she has only just turned two – and it is all coming from her. Georgie is such a proud big sister every time Lydia does anything, she jumps and cheers and claps in delight and praise. She also fetches potties, and instructs her little sister in how to wipe and then takes her to wash her hands. I won’t go into too much detail about the “you lean forward and go uuurrrrgggghhhhh” poo training!
I don’t know, only four and two years old, and they are already starting to go to the toilet as a pair.
*After potty training Georgie last summer, we probably only have one real must buy product that I’d recommend – we love our My Carry Potty. We bought it at the baby show last year and it was so brilliant for getting Georgie to use the potty while out and about, and she even used it at home a lot. Georgie is very slim so found full size toilets scary for the first year or so.
The fact you don’t need to be near a loo to use it is fab, you can just close up the potty and deal with the mess inside later – the seal is wee, poo and leak proof – we haven’t had any problems at all with it. When closed kids can use it as a stool to reach sinks, too – we’ve had a lot of “wow, that’s neat!” comments in public loos. I’m gutted ours is boring blue though, they have ladybird, cow and bumblebee designs now!
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