Potty Training early

No you are not a bad mommy. You are not a bad mommy if you bottle feed your child. You are not a bad mommy if you sleep train etc etc. You have decided to train your child because you feel it is time. That is perfectly fine.

If you put any parenting question out there, be sure to get postitive comments and negative comments and then some really nasty comments. That is the nature of parenting. It is as if when someone goes against your judgement, they are questioning the most sacred parts of your being, your maternal instict.

There is no harm in introducing the potty at a young age as long as you don't have expectations. Kids potty train when they are ready and it isn't always age related, but sometimes they may just train faster when they are a bit older or a bit more ready. That is all.

Juandre - I am planning to do the same and my LG is only 13 months!!!

She wees everytime I run her bath water (sometimes I've already taken the nappy off and it happens on the floor). So, this weekend I am going to buy her a potty and just encourage her to sit on it while I run her bath water. If she wees, great. If she just sits there, also great and if she hates it and doesn't want to sit on it - no pressure. Just think I may as well seize the opportunity

The worst thing is that the main comments came from a friends mom. My MIL looks after my friends baby who is 5 weeks older than my LG and when I am working my MIL has my LG too. Now this friend and her mom dont believe in routine and believe baby must just do go with the flow. They will drop LG off with my MIL at 9am some mornings and havent even given her breakfast and she is starving. On a monday morning LG arrives with bags under her eyes and she is miserable as she gets very little sleep during the day over the weekends again as they feel she must do what the adults are doing. When they come to fetch her if she is falls and cries they tell her "dont be a cry baby"- wtf she is a baby.
Now I dont agree with any of this. I am a stickler for routine and having set meal times for babies. But I dont critisize her and this is the first time I have actually said anything about them to someone else. I feel this is her child and unless I felt there was serious neglect happening it is not my place to tell her how to bring up her child.

Anyway, thank you all for making me feel better about what I am doing.

Some kiddies take longer while others are early bloomers. I was off the bottle and potty trained by 12 months!! Just like some children start teething by 4 months while others only at 9 months. Some never crawl, the go straight to walking...

So good on you if you and your lg can pull it off without any pressure!

I've also started with my lb who takes his own nappy off... When I did an internet search about it guess what I found out - the average age of full potty training is 3 years now compared to 2 i the 80's. There is no right way to potty train - just as long as its not punitive. Elimination Communication is becomming popular and is training your baby from birth.

I find it ironic that nowadays peope are willing to train their babies to self soothe and sleep on their own with crying techniques, but think that encouraging your child to toilet train early is cruel. Ignore your friends, theyre ignorant.

BTW Dr Sears recommends 18 months as being a good time to start, if you miss this window you often have to wait a lot longer because they seem to develop a fear of the potty:)

Jams has pood in the potty 3 times and weed once. Next week I'm not working because we are renovating and I'm going to go bare bum:)

You are definitely not a bad mommy. Both my brother and I were potty-trained by 18months. And there is nothing wrong with us. We are struggling with my LG to potty train her and we decided to stop during the winter, but will start again now that it is warmer. I think if your child is not ready, she will definitely cry or be upset when you put her on the potty. I know my child didn’t want to sit on the potty, so I bought the toilet seat, and she is happy with that.

Thanks Juanita. Its so stupid how we allow what other ppl say to get to us. I even sent my DH a bbm to ask what he thought...