A Post About Potty Training

Ok, first of all, let's be clear.  I am NOT any sort of expert on potty training.  I have one child and it just happened to go very smoothly, very early - much earlier than I expected.  However, so many moms have asked me how we potty trained Danny and how we did it so early that I do want to share worked for us.  I will definitely use the same method with other children in the future.

I read about toilet training on Mckmama's site, and Kingdom Mama's site, and took a lot of guidance from the Toddlerwise book.

I define a child to be potty trained when he stays accident-free for over 48 hours and does not need continual prompting to tell an adult he needs to use the toilet, but rather, will generally do so on his own with only an occasional exception.

I also sort of mentally break the process into three phases.  Pre-potty training, potty training, and trained.

Pre-potty training starts as early as the child is interested in anything that happens in the bathroom and continues until the formal training starts.  I think we pre-trained Danny for around a year.  As soon as Danny was old enough to sit on the toilet and want to mimic us, we bought a child's toilet seat and let him sit on it before baths.  If we happened to catch him at a time when we knew he had to go and he was willing to sit and try, we let him.  This resulted in the occasional success of something landing in the toilet, although we didn't really care if it happened or not.

We also got a child's seat that goes on the big toilet, not a child's training toilet that sits independent of a real toilet and needs to be emptied.  I didn't want to have to train him onto one thing only to have to train him off of it and onto the big one later.

Pre-potty training also included a lot of (ahem) narration of our own happenings in the bathroom.  (Am I really writing this on the world wide web?!  Yes.  Yes, I am.  I do think this contributed to our success quite a bit.)  Whenever Danny was in the bathroom while either one of us was using the toilet (which, when you have a toddler is all the time), we'd excitedly point and explain what was happening.  We also talked about it a lot during diaper changes.  For example, "Danny, do you have a wet diaper?  Oh, look!  You went peepee!  Good job!!"

And yes, there were more than one occasion that I thought, "Oh my goodness, am I really truly excitedly narrating my bowel movement to my son??  Yes. Yes, I am.  Welcome to parent-hood, Renee."  But hey, Danny has never had any fear or qualms about eliminating on the toilet.  Talking about it quelled any fear that might have been.

We do call it peepee, poopoo, and potty.  These are simple words that he can say clearly and everyone knows what he's talking about.  I didn't want him to have to fumble with the word urinate just to tell us what he needed.

Another thing we did that I think really contributed to our success was we waited and put off potty training for quite a while. I think we spent about two months telling each other, "He really is ready.  We just need to pick a weekend and go for it."  I guess I put it off for so long because I wanted to be sure as sure can be that he was ready.  I wanted it to be a one-shot-deal and I did NOT want to have any false starts.  So, I waited until I knew that we'd be successful at it.  I didn't expect him to be ready as early as he was either.  I'm just guessing, but I'd be willing to bet that all the pre-potty training helped him be ready early.

What were the signs?  Well he was waking up dry, both in the morning and after naps.  He would wet his diaper shortly after waking up, especially if he ended up playing in his crib for too long, but the key was that he was holding it until he woke.  He never really stopped or squatted to go in his diaper, but that is often a good sign a child is ready.  He did, however, tell me when he needed a diaper changed, particularly when it was a dirty one.  We do use cloth diapers and it's said that cloth diapers aide in potty training because the child feels more wet than in a disposable.  I have nothing to compare to, so I don't know, but it might well be true.  Lastly, I knew he was ready because the morning we decided he was ready, he woke up dry and I promptly took off his diaper and said, "Let's go to the potty!"  He held it until we got there and when I sat him down, he looked down, intentionally went, and then looked up and told me he was done.  When I considered that and the fact that I had nothing planned that day, I decided it was time to go for it and I left him naked from the waist down for the rest of the day until nap time.

This brings me to the day of potty-training.  Yes, it only really took one day and yes, I do use the let-your-child-run-naked method.  With nothing on, he was very aware of anything that might be going on in the pottying vicinity and this helped a great deal.  Right after the first use of the toilet, we went downstairs (him with only a t-shirt on) and went about breakfast as usual.  I placed a towel for him to sit on top of on his booster seat just for comfort and gave him one of his favorite breakfasts and lots of juice, so he'd eat and drink a lot.

During breakfast I filled a plastic cup with water and several drops of yellow food coloring in it.  I placed the yellow water, several books, the child potty seat and his reward (we used dried cranberries - they are sweet and make you thirsty, which makes him drink, which in turn makes him urinate more often) in the bathroom on our main level.  We spent that whole day playing downstairs, where there are linoleum floors instead of carpet, or on the back deck just in case.  Right after breakfast, I said, "ok, let's go potty!"  Off we went.  Danny sat, but did nothing.  Then I sat and urinated.  The rule for potty training day is that when anyone goes potty, everyone gets a treat.  So after I went, I got a treat and of course so did he.  His stuffed bear also got a treat (which of course Danny got to eat) so Danny was excited about that.

Then we played for a while.  I made sure I did not try to multi-task that day, but rather played with him all day.  It was a very special day for him and he got LOTS of quality time with Mama.  This also helped me pay close attention to him and his behavior.  After a bit, we tried again, this time with success!  Also this time, his stuffed bear "went potty."  I gave the bear a pretend drink of water.  Then I said, "Bear has to go potty!"  We took the bear into the bathroom, I held him over the toilet, and as I made a "ssss" sound, I poured a little bit of yellow water into the toilet.  Then I said, "All done!"  I cheered and pointed to the color in the toilet.  Danny's eyes were as big as saucers!  It was SO cute!  He was really excited when all three of us (Danny, the bear and I) got a treat because the bear went potty.  After that, Danny sat down and went and so did I, all with the rewards to follow.  By this time, Danny definitely understood and we just repeated the process for the rest of the day.

I made sure he went right before his nap - I actually delayed his nap a bit so he would do so - and then put him in a diaper to sleep in.  I paid close attention when he woke up so he wouldn't have to wait in his crib and accidentally wet in his diaper. I think he did a little but then went on the toilet afterwards anyway.

I realized that part of the point of having a potty training day was to train me.  I needed to learn how he behaves when he has to go, and since he had always been in a diaper, I never really paid much attention.  It also helped me realize when he has to go.  Most of us have fairly regular elimination patterns and this includes kids.  One of the reasons I love the Babywise method is because it provides regular eating and sleeping patterns for kids.  This causes regular elimination habits as well and then potty training is pretty easy.

Danny did go a second day without bottoms on.  When I put bottoms back on, I only put shorts (no underwear or training pants).  This actually was just by accident - because Danny is so tiny we had to order them from the internet - but it worked perfectly.  Danny had clothes on, but it still felt very different from having a diaper on.  It wasn't until 4 or 5 days later that we actually put underwear on him and by then he had the whole potty thing down so it didn't matter what he was wearing.

Eventually (after two or three days) the treats ran out or we forgot to have them with us and it didn't seem to matter.  Actually I think Danny forgot or got tired of the treats before I did, which was nice.  I guess the novelty just wore off.  Maybe this is because we used a dried fruit instead of something as sweet as candy.  The key is to find something he loves, something you don't care if he eats a TON of,j and something that will make him thirsty.

So here's the timeline: We started pre-training Danny when he was somewhere between 12 and 15 months. Potty training day was a Monday after he turned 25 months.  Monday he was accident free.  Between Tuesday and Friday he had 3 accidents that didn't happen at night or at nap time (I don't count those).  Friday he had his last daytime accident.  By the following Monday I quit asking him if he had to go, for the most part.  Just to avoid a potential mess, we have been putting a diaper cover over his underwear to sleep in, but tonight (2 or 3 weeks after training day) he is sleeping without a diaper cover on for the first time.

A couple of other side notes:

I never ever scolded for an accident.  I just said, "Oh look!  You made a poopoo on the kitchen floor!  We'd better put it in the potty now."  Then I'd pick it up, put it in the toilet, allow Danny to sit and have the opportunity to finish and then let him flush.  I think I even gave him a treat for that.  The point was that it ended up in the toilet.  How it got there was irrelevant.  Danny was already embarrassed and upset that it landed on the floor in the first place.  I believe in praising him to success and focusing on what he does wrong only if absolutely necessary.

We didn't have much trouble transitioning to public toilets or toilets without the potty seat.  He still uses the child's toilet seat at home - he's just so small and it's more comfortable for him.  In public, however, it's simply not around.  Usually by the time we get there, he has to go so bad that as long as I'm holding him tightly as he sits and he feels secure, he'll go without hesitation.  I did take him more often than necessary to "try" the first time or two we were out and about, though.  That "practice" probably helped.

Well, there you have it!  Potty training in a nut-shell in the Chinchilla Porras household.  Did I miss anything?  Do you have questions?  If so, leave them in the comments section, email me, or ask me on Twitter or Facebook.  I'll try to re-post the questions here for all to read.

Ya'll have a great night and happy pottying!

Cloth Diapers 104 - But What About Poop??

I can't believe I failed to address the whole BM (bowel movement) issue in my post on the care and cleaning of cloth diapers last night. It's probably because I was writing at midnight and well on my way to getting sick.

But anyway.

So what DO you do when your kiddo poops in a cloth diaper? You don't just throw that into your washing machine, do you? Gross! The answer is, it depends on your baby's age and eating habits.

If it's meconium that's in the diaper (that's baby's 1st poop - warning on that link: there's a picture!), this should be rinsed out before the diaper is tossed into the diaper pail. You can rinse one of two ways. (1) Swish it in the toilet, wring it out and flush the contents down. Then wash your hands WELL. The second option (2) is to buy and install a diaper sprayer onto your toilet and use this to rinse the diaper before wringing it out and depositing it into the diaper laundry. Again, wash your hands WELL.

Neither of these options sound super appealing, but it's really not as bad as it sounds.

Once meconium passes, your little one's poop will become much lighter in color and will resemble batter in consistency. This "breast milk poop" is completely water soluble and it washes right out in the pre-wash. No rinsing needed. Just toss that dirty diaper right into the laundry as is.

When your baby starts to eat solid foods, the BMs will become more solid and will resemble the consistency of playdough. At this point, dumping the BM right into the toilet will be easy and will usually require no rinsing at all. Just dump and toss the diaper into the laundry.

For the intermittent times when you sweet one is sick or teething or whatever the case may be and the BMs are less than easy to dump, I recommend using disposable diaper liners. They're around $6 or $7 for 100. They are flushable and biodegradable and make dumping easy. These liners go inside the cloth diaper, right against baby's bum.  Essentially, they catch the mess, letting wet go through and absorb into the cloth diaper and make the mess easy to dump into the toilet. I discovered these liners just this week and they've made diaper changes SO much easier!

There you go.  More than you ever wanted to know - and probably more - about poopy cloth diapers.



**Picture of diaper sprayer graciously provided by babycottonbottoms.com (my favorite cloth diaper store).

Cloth Diapers 103 - Care and Cleaning

Well if you've missed out on cloth diapers 101 and 102, you can read about what cloth diapers look like these days and why on earth I chose to use cloth, but I have found that one of the first questions I get about cloth diapers is, "How do you wash them?"  Translation:  "How gross is it actually, to wash them all the time?"

Well, here's your answer...  the short version is that all it takes is a pre-wash and an extra rinse and spin.

Here's the long detailed version:

Diapers should go no more than three days without being washed.  I wash every third day and I only buy enough cloth diapers to last three days.  There's not really any reason to have any more than that.  While they're waiting to be washed, they sit inside a high quality kitchen trash can lined by a diaper pail liner.  Choose a trash can that's going to keep odors in.  A diaper pail liner is a water proof polyurethane bag that lines the diaper pail.  I recommend getting two so you have something to line your diaper pail when the other one is in the wash.  There are also smaller polyurethane totes for when you're on the go.

To wash a load of cloth diapers, cloth wipes and diaper covers, start by tossing it all (diaper pail liner included) into the washer and run it on a cold pre-wash with the maximum amount of water.  (Cold, not hot.  Hot sets stains.)  This is to rinse out all the mess and send it down the sewer, where it goes.  (Also, make sure all Velcro is hooked to itself so it doesn't snag and ruin other items.  The easiest time to do this is right after taking it off of the baby before tossing it into the laundry.)  Next, run a regular wash cycle with the maximum amount of water on cold and add about half of the amount of laundry detergent you would usually use for a regular amount of laundry.  Cloth diapers are extremely absorbent, so we don't want to much detergent to get into all the micro fibers of the cloth and stay there.  Finish it off with an extra rinse and spin using cold water and maximum water.  The maximum water is to help thoroughly rinse out the very absorbent cloth.

Now for drying...  the polyurethane (water resistant) diapers, covers, liners and totes should be hung dry, never thrown in the dryer as the heat will ruin the polyurethane and they will no longer keep wet inside.  The good news is that they dry very quickly.  Here in extremely dry Colorado, they're dry in under 4 hours.  Anything that's NOT polyurethane can go right into the dryer on high heat.  I usually have to dry them for a cycle and a half because the thick absorbent cotton takes a little longer to dry.

That's it, folks!

As far as which laundry detergent to use - well every household is different.  I use our regular laundry detergent that we use for everything else.  If you're looking for an environmentally friendly, additive free detergent, I really like Allens Naturally.  (And just as a reminder, NO, I'm not being paid for a product review.  These are just the products that I really like, recommend, and put on my own baby's bottom.)  Never use fabric softeners on cloth diapers, as these can cause a build-up in the cloth and can decrease its absorbency.

I have heard of some moms wanting to "strip" their cloth diapers.  If you are washing properly with a good detergent, you shouldn't have to do this, but if you are experiencing a residual odor, I suggest giving Dani a call.  She's the owner of Baby Cotton Bottoms (my favorite cloth diaper store) and diaper guru.  She can help you figure out what the problem is and how to fix it.

I did find myself wanting to strip my diapers once...  they just built up a smelly odor and didn't seem to get rid of it in the wash.  This worked for me:  I loaded them into the washer and ran a pre-wash on hot water with a cup of bleach and the maximum amount of water.  Then I ran a regular wash with hot water with twice the amount of laundry detergent you usually use for your diaper loads (or the same amount of detergent you use for your regular laundry).  Then I ran an extra rinse/spin with cold water two or three times.  It took me all day, but it did the trick.

Chinese flat pre-fold diapers (my personal diaper of choice) need to be pre-washed and shrunk before they are ready for use.

To prepare them for use, put them through a wash cycle with very hot water and no detergent.  Then completely dry them on the highest heat.  Repeat this process 3 or 4 times until the diapers are nice and fluffy.  I've heard you can reduce the number of times you need to do this process by boiling the diapers in a very large pot of water over the stove first, but I think using the washer is much easier.  Other types of cloth diapers do not need to be pre-washed.

See?  Pretty simple once all is said and done.

Do I need a Cloth Diapers 104?  Does this leave you with more questions?  If so, ask away... otherwise this might be the conclusion of the cloth diaper series...  I'm not too sure what else is needed.

Happy Cloth Diapering!



**Picture of Chinese prefolds graciously provided by babycottonbottoms.com (my favorite cloth diaper store). 

Cloth Diapers 102 - Why?

As promised (long long ago in a far away land - just kidding), I am back with my second post on cloth diapering.  I'm here to answer the question, "Why on God's green earth, would I want to use cloth diapers in the first place???"

I'm so glad you asked.  Ahem.

Well, God's green earth actually is a big reason.  But alas, I must admit, it was not my first reason.  My first reason the simple fact that I'm cheap frugal.

Have you ever added up the cost of disposable diapers???  Holy moley, it's ridiculous, especially if you don't buy the generic store brand - which I do on the rare occasion we need a pack of disposables for longer travel.

The kind owner, Dani, of Baby Cotton Bottoms (my favorite cloth diaper store) has given me permission to use all of her research and content (because Heaven knows I won't be doing that myself), so if you want the full scoop, just click on over to her site.  And nope, I'm not being paid for this review.  I just really like cloth.  And Baby Cotton Bottoms.

But what was I saying?  Oh, yes, the cost... There is a myth out there that cloth diapers end up costing more than disposables.  Well, I suppose the up front investment is more, especially if you don't include them in your baby registry, and if you use the most expensive brands, and if you buy enough for five days without washing instead of 2 or 3 (gross), and if you opt for a diaper service rather than washing them at home.  But consider what Dani says:

"Your baby will go through about 6 -12 diapers a day ~ or about 9000 diaper changes by the time he/she is potty trained. At $0.24 a diaper, that adds up to about $2,160! Disposable wipes will cost another $400-500. In contrast, purchasing your own cloth diapers and cloth wipes to wash them at home will cost somewhere between $300 and $1000. Considering your laundering costs (about $.50 a load or $120 over the course of 30 months) you will still save about $2,000 - $2,500 over an average 2.5 year period! And if you reuse your diapers over multiple babies, you can multiply this savings!"  That was plenty reason for me.

"Washing every third day for about 15 minutes (that's about what I spend loading, unloading, etc) translates into 300 wash loads per baby or 75 hours total. If you saved $2000 by cloth diapering, you just paid yourself over $25 an hour! If you wash every other day, you still pay yourself about $17.75 per hour. I don't know about you, but I can't argue with a wage like that!"

And if you decide to use cloth wipes too, the savings are even bigger.  Why wouldn't you? If you're going to wash the diapers, you might as well wash the wipes too. Dani figures on an average of 84 wipes per week. At 4.4 cents per wipe, that's $480.

So there's the monetary savings.

My second consideration was that I really did like the idea of cloth on my baby's bum rather than disposable materials.  I knew nothing about the actual contents of chemicals in disposables, but Dani does.  She shares all about it here.  Here's what I found out by experience:  My little one's newborn tooshie had much less diaper rash with cloth and when I used my wipes juice solution, than when I used disposables from the hospital.  I found that it left his skin hydrated and soft.  Much better.

My third consideration was God's green earth.  I am all about taking care of this planet He gave us.  I'm not a fanatic, but these numbers just grossed me out.  First of all, have you considered that it is actually illegal to throw away human waste in a trash can?  It must be specially disposed of.  Just check out any hospital.  And yet, what happens to dirty disposable diapers each day?  Ick!  All that should be dumped down the toilet, rather than a trash can.

Dani says, "a single baby goes through about 9,000 diaper changes before they are potty trained. That adds up to about 2 tons of used, non-biodegradable waste per baby when disposable diapers are used! In 1988, over 18 billion diapers were sold and consumed in the United States that year.  Estimates suggest that 82,000 tons of plastic and 1.8 million tons of wood pulp (1/4 million trees) are consumed each year in the production of disposable diapers. In 1988, nearly $300 million dollars were spent annually just to discard disposable diapers..."

"No one knows how long it takes for a disposable diaper to decompose, but it is estimated to be about 250-500 years, long after your children, grandchildren and great, great, great grandchildren will be gone.  Disposable diapers are the third largest single consumer item in landfills, and represent about 4% of solid waste. In a house with a child in diapers, disposables make up 50% of household waste."

"Disposable diapers generate sixty times more solid waste and use twenty times more raw materials, like crude oil and wood pulp.  The manufacture and use of disposable diapers amounts to 2.3 times more water wasted than cloth."

"In 1991, an attempt towards recycling disposable diapers was made in the city of Seattle, involving 800 families, 30 day care centers, a hospital and a Seattle-based recycler for a period of one year. The conclusion made by Procter & Gamble was that recycling disposable diapers was not an economically feasible task on any scale."

Yikes!

Why use cloth diapers?  It's better for our Earth.  It's better for baby's skin.  It's better for your bank account.   Enough said.

Cloth Diapers 101

When

cloth diapers

are

this cute

why wouldn't you

want to

use them? 

Well, why one might choose to use cloth diapers is for another post.  This post is just to introduce all of you novice diaper-ers to the current cloth diaper world and all its updated features.  For those of you who would never consider using cloth, because well, you remember what it was like to change a million and one of your little brother's diapers, all the times you stuck yourself (or him) with pins, and all of those plasticky pants that went on top to keep his clothes dry...  take a deep breath.  It's changed quite a bit. 

So here you go...  these are a few of the common types  of cloth diapers.  In order from simple to fancy - first, we have the good old fashioned flat Chinese prefolds: 

These diapers come "un-shrunk" and must be washed so that they fluff up and shrink. 

But once you wash them...  they are soft and quilted and they get better and better the more you use them.  These things simply don't wear out.  These are what Danny wears.  The pros about these diapers - they're the cheapest and simplest to wash.  Cons - they must be folded to fit onto baby's bum correctly.  (Click here to see how.)  This is a cinch once you get the hang of it, though.  The best part?  No. More. Pins.  We now have the Snappi diaper fastener.  It's sheer genius.  It has dull plastic teeth that hold onto the fabric much like an ace bandage does. 

Then, there must be a cover to go over the super absorbent cloth diaper.  This is my favorite brand.  It's the Thirsties brand.  This is also what Danny wears usually, although the cover he's in in the pictures above are custom made by Jessica. 

The Thirsties Duo-Wrap covers come in sizes 1 or 2

and they are adjustable  

so you only have to purchase two sets of covers

birth to potty-training.

This is beginning to sound like an advertisement, but I really do just LOVE these diapers.  And no, I am NOT getting any ad money for posting this.  Although I should. ahem.  It's all just for the love of the game diaper. 

Ok, next we have the slightly more fancy fitted diaper.  These serve the same purpose as the flat Chinese prefold diaper, however they are fitted, so no folding is required to make it fit around baby's bum just right. 

This is the Bamboozles fitted diaper, and as you can see by buttons and Velcro, these are also adjustable so they grow with your baby.  Fitted diapers must be worn under a cover (like the Thirsties Duo-wrap cover) as well.  Otherwise, you know, they'd leak.  These are significantly more expensive than Chinese prefolds.

Ok, next up in the simple-to-fancy line-up is the pocket diaper.  Here you have Happy Heiny's version: 

Just as it sounds, it is a pocket that wraps around baby's bum.  The inner layer of the pocket is a layer of fabric that wicks wetness away from the sweet soft tooshie.  The outer layer is made of a water-resistant fabric to keep baby's clothes dry.  Inside the pocket goes an absorbent insert: 

The pros - no cover is needed around a pocket diaper.  It fits pretty snugly and still washes and dries pretty easily as the insert is removed from the pocket diaper before washing.  The cons - you only get one use out of each pocket diaper, because once it's wet, it must be changed, whereas with Chinese prefolds, you can change the diaper and re-use the cover 3-4 times before having to wash it.  So you end up needing a couple dozen diapers but only 4-6 covers.  Here is a great page on how many diapers you need. 

Last and most fancy is the all-in-one diaper.  Its absorbent interior and water resistant exterior layer are all sewn together so you grab one, slap (not literally) it on, and go.  Then the whole thing comes off in one piece and goes right into the laundry.   

The pros - it's simple and quick.  The cons - it's the most expensive and takes a LONG time to dry.  Plus, they must be hung dry because dryers will damage the water resistant exterior.  Duo-wraps must also hang dry, but because they are only one layer thick, they dry in less than four hours (at least here in Colorado they do). 

There are, of course, some other diaper systems out there that fit into one or more of these categories or maybe an in-between category.  But those are the major ones. 

Alright, on to cloth wipes. 

What?!  Cloth wipes!?!?  WHY on earth would I want to use cloth wipes?  Well, again, we'll save the why for another post.  But for now, let's just leave it at this:  If you're going to wash dirty diapers (and avoid purchasing and throwing away a butt-load of disposables (pun completely intended)) (did I really just put that many parentheses in one sentence? Yep.) you might as well wash dirty wipes too.  Plus, I need about 4 or 5 disposable wipes for a job I can do with only 2 cloth ones.  Anyway, they sell them...

...or you can make your own.  These are Imse Vimse's cloth wipes.  But you can also use baby wash cloths (which may be more expensive) or you can buy a yard or two of flannel material and sew it into squares (sew it so the edges don't fray).  You could also go to a superstore and buy a large pack of regular wash cloths and use those.  All will get the job done. 

Wipes, of course, need to be wet.  The solution we pour over the cloth wipes to make them wet is what we call "wipes juice" and there are a million and one recipes out there.  Ours is very simple: 

Wipes Juice: 

In an 8 oz container, squirt about a tablespoon of baby shampoo.  Then squirt about a tablespoon of baby oil.  Then fill the container with water. 

Put the wipes in some sort of container (we use the wipes containers that you usually buy with disposable wipes in them and which can be used over and over and over) and pour the wipes juice over them all until wet.  Wring out a wet wipe of excess juice before using it.  (Unless you enjoy soaking your baby every time you change his diaper.) 

And that, my friends, is Cloth Diapering 101. 

What else would you like to know?  What questions have I left you with?  Leave comments and I'll respond in my next cloth diapering post. 

**All pictures not of Danilo were graciously provided by http://www.babycottonbottoms.com/ (my favorite cloth diaper store).