Lainey is a learning machine these days. I went away for the weekend (my first trip away from her overnight) and I couldn't believe it when I got back. She learned combined consonant sounds while I was gone! She went from saying "cothes" to "clothes" and from "bocks" to "blocks". I told her that she isn't allowed to grow up at all if I'm not there. She's also cutting another molar. The upper left one is popping through this week.
We also are officially beginning an earnest try at the potty. I ordered 12 pairs of cotton training pants in the 18 month size from Amazon. You can't find that size in stores, so we had to wait for them to arrive. Lainey is no longer wearing diapers at all during the day. She wears one for a nap and one for bed. We've spent the last several months sitting on the potty when she wakes up and before naps and baths. So she has a positive association with the potty. Now we are sitting on it every chance we get. We've had a lot of accidents today, but I think it because we got into a bad rhythm this morning in addition to me being a little more distracted than I should be. Potty learning is not a time to put off going to the potty for any reason! I thought today that after lunch I had time to get the dishes in the dishwasher before we went potty. Nope. Oh well. Lainey is napping now and I hope when she gets up we can have a more successful afternoon.
Some of you may be wondering why I went straight for cotton pants instead of pull-ups. The reason is that all disposable diapers, including pull-ups, wick away moisture from the skin too fast for the child to know that they've gone. With cotton pants or cloth diapers, the baby knows right away that they are wet and are more likely to make the association between urinating and getting wet. The goal is to help them learn what it feels like when they need to go so that they are more likely to use the potty. The good thing about today is that despite all of our "accidents," Lainey told me every time that she had gone potty and I could change her immediately.
Some good books on early potty training/learning are: Diaper-free Before 3 and Early-Start Potty Training. Even at 17 months, we aren't that early to start as both of these books advocate sitting on the potty as early as 3-6 months and in cotton pants by 12 months. But we are earlier than most people so I'll be sure to share my experience with it. Supposedly the earlier you start, the earlier you are finished and the less diapers you have to buy! And that's always a good thing. :)
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