For ease of reading, I’m splitting this post into 4 parts so you can choose which one(s) to read and what to skip.
Click on the Page numbers below to read that section only.
Page 1 - YOU ARE HERE - Our first attempt and why I didn’t try again for another 2 years.
Page 2 | Daytime Pee Training Success
Page 3 | Daytime Poop Training Success
Page 4 | Tips, FAQs, and Links to Potty Seats
Laddoo achieved this milestone almost a year and a half ago and I didn’t post about it because I didn’t think too much of it. But after I posted stories about training pants (more on this in Part 2 of the post after we’ve used the training pants for a while and have achieved some amount of success with night-time training) I realised that many of you are interested in knowing more about this. So in this post, I have shared how we approached this with Laddoo, things we tried that worked, and what didn’t.
Our first attempt
October 2017 (13 months old)
Like all first-time parents, I too was eager to get to this milestone, I’m really not sure why. As soon as she turned one, I ordered a ring reducer (kids’ toilet seat that you place on the adult toilet seat so the child doesn’t fall in – Link at the end of the post). The next few days were spent in watching her closely. I wasn’t ready to keep her diaper-free all the time so I never realised when she was about to pee, but the second I realised that she needed to poop, I would rush her to the bathroom and put her on the seat.
It worked only once, the first time, I think. After that it was a constant struggle of tears and her wanting to get off the seat as soon as I put her on it. I sang, I made funny faces, I talked to her, but she just didn’t want to sit on it. I was still nursing her on demand and at that point, I really didn’t need the stress. So I decided to wait a few months and give it another go later.
October 2017 – May 2018 (13-20 months old)
This was a tumultuous time for us as a family. Between teething and a sleep regression that went on for close to 3 months, I barely had any energy to stay awake and function, let alone be alert enough to rush her to the bathroom.
In February, we took our first (and only, till date) holiday as a family. Three days after we came back, we realised Laddoo had chicken pox, which, two weeks later, I caught, followed by one round of conjunctivitis in March end-April beginning for Sandeep, Laddoo, and then me. During that time, we also bought our first home which we moved into on May 28, 2018.
May 2018 – November 2019 (20 months – 3 years+2 months old)
In a new house and a totally new environment Laddoo already had a lot to adjust to, which, to her credit, she did really well thanks to easy access to the park and swings. But I still wasn’t sure it was the right time to start potty training her. A part of the reason was because most of our furniture had a fabric coating on it (which meant it would smell/stain), some of which had been freshly purchased for the new house. Another part was that I was all alone with her on most days. Expecting myself to be hyper-vigilant in addition to feeding, bathing, cleaning, entertaining, nursing her, and putting her to bed, was asking a little too much of myself and I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.
In November 2018 (2 years, 2 months of age) I weaned her off breast milk, which was another huge transition for us to go through. Though she took it well, I didn’t want to push it by adding another one to it.
In June 2019 (2 years, 9 months of age) Laddoo started nursery school and while she adapted to that as well fairly easily, I still wasn’t sure if it was the right time to try potty training.
I did try to see if she was ready every once in a while, and we did have success ONCE, but when most of these tries resulted in resistance or discomfort, I didn’t push it.
So she stayed in diapers.
Being Mamma Bear 