Potty Training an 8 month old (say whaaat?)

I recently shared a post on Insta of Freddo dropping a log in his potty, don’t worry it wasn’t graphic but my DMs soon filled up with people asking questions about him sitting on his throne because he’s so young (8 months). This time people weren’t being shitty (see what I did there) so I’ve decided to answer some of the questions I’ve been asked as well as share my experience of ‘potty training’ Freddie. 

this post is in collaboration with Freddie

I say this in the least snotty smug mummy blogger way but I guess I’ve been potty training Fred from when he was around 6 weeks old, My Mum and Mam-gu had told me that they used to hold little dishes under their babies (me and my Mum) to get her/me used to the sensation of doing stuff in somewhere there that wasn’t a nappy and they both used towelling nappies so I suppose it was more economical and a bit of a bonus when a turd landed in a bowl rather than a nappy. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think much of this when they told me, it seemed like a right faff and something I probably wouldn’t be arsed to do. That was until Fred the Fox decided to stop shitting all together. 

As I said, he was about 6 weeks old and this parenting lark was going smoothly, too smoothly and our little sugar puff decided to teach us a lesson by getting constipated…for four days. This resulted in four long days of me overly panicking and demanding Luke took us to A&E every half an hour, Freddie screaming like a demon and Luke hating his life. I little trip up to Crewe where my Mum changed his formula to Hungry Baby did the trick and not long after the formula switch there were mega rumblings going on in that kid’s belly. It wasn’t long before the poo  toend all poos was making it’s way out of Freddie like the basilisk itself and no nappy was going to contain that monster. I quickly grabbed a takeaway dish and held it between my legs whilst holding Freddie over the top and let him get his life back together. I was amazed/impressed that the size of thing and at the fact that it just took a couple of wipes with some wet cotton pads for him to perfectly clean and ready to pop back into a nappy it was dead convenient and environmentally friendly and I like that a lot. 

It wasn’t long before Freddie and I got back into the swing of things and his new formula made it easy for me to suss out his cycles and more often than not catch his craps with a takeaway dish and avoid a caked up nappy, back and vest. He seemed to much prefer doing his deeds in a dish, I can’t imagine the sensation of shitting yourself to be that pleasant. It was a bit of a bugger when we’re out or the dish wasn’t available but when possible I’d just open up his nappy and let everything slide out…mess free which we both liked.

and so it begins....

Now Freddie’s on solids it’s harder to work out his poop pattern, it depends more on what he has eaten rather than when and catching the craps has stepped up a level but as he’s sitting up and sits still, my Mum got us a potty to try him on and he’s loving it so far. We tend to pop him on it when it seems logical like not too long after a bottle or when he’s visibly showing his usual signs of wanting to go. Obviously there’s no pressure involved in the process, he’s only 8 months old and doesn’t understand the concept of potty training but when he does something we all make a fuss with claps and cheers and if he starts getting restless or unhappy we take him off. It’s not about making sure he does it in his potty, it’s about getting him used to doing it in his potty so when the time comes for more intense training, we’ve already crossed the potty-fear barrier (look at me proper sounding like a parenting pro here). 

After doing a birra research on this stuff it turns out there’s an arty farty name for it, Elimination Communication * gags * if you google this it comes up with all sorts of techniques and tutorials that might be more useful if you’re looking for some ‘professional guidance’. We’re just winging this parenting thing and trying things out that feel right for us and Freddie and somehow, potty training from a young age worked for us. It’s not stressful, it’s not messy and not a big of a deal as it seems. If you want to shove your little one on a takeaway dish then have a go, no harm in trying is there.