Potty!

I have been thinking for a few months that Sweets may potty train pretty soon. She signs CHANGE when she wants you to change her diaper, or will even go fetch a clean diaper and bring it to you. She also signs DIAPER and POTTY. She has been going for long stretches between wet diapers, and even wakes up dry from nights and naps more and more fequently. Munchkin potty trained right around this age too - she was in unders full-time during the day the week of her 2nd birthday. Sweets will turn two in 6 weeks.

When I first mentioned to my husband that I thought Sweets might be ready to potty train soon, he was pretty skeptical. He said "She's late doing everything else, I don't know what makes you think she's going to potty train." I just took the baby potty out from storage and showed it to her. Some time later, we were talking about Sweets' delays, and my husband said that he feared that we would start to expect less from her, and that she would therefore do less. I said, you mean like potty training? After that he was 100% supportive of potty training!

So I brought the baby potty into the living room and we have been leaving her naked from the waist down at home more often. She has been sitting on the potty at diaper changes, but she hasn't "done" anything in it yet. That is up until last night!

She was in the bath and started signing POTTY and frantically making noises - "Mmmmh! Mmmmh!" I didn't want her to potty in the bath, so I took her out and dried her off and sat her on the potty. She sat, but didn't go. When she stood up, she held her knees together and grabbed her crotch and made the frantic "Mmmmh! Mmmmh!" noises again. Then she sat and stood up and repeated the noises. This cycle went on for about 20 minutes interspersed with some playing. It was like she knew she had to go, but she didn't really know what to do about it and was trying to hold it in. Eventually, she got so frantic that I sat her on the potty and played "If You're Happy And You Know It" with her to occupy her hands and try to keep her still. And when she got up, there was a big poop in the potty!

We worry about her cognitive abilities, because she still doesn't succeed at the shape sorter or simple puzzles. But she can communicate many things through signing, which shows us that she understands language and remembers the signs and knows how to use them. So maybe she will be able to potty train just fine, despite her other delays!