On Sunday of last week, Aaron and I had a conversation about when to start potty training Macario. Neither of us is in a huge hurry to get it done; however, we do believe it's important to start getting Macario familiar with the toilet and, more importantly, familiar with his body and the sensation of having to "go."

After our discussion I was anxious to get started as I had a particular method in mind that I wanted to use, so we purchased a training potty from Ikea and got started right away!

I've assumed majority of the responsibility for following through with the training. I did some research and decided to use the Elimination Communication (EC) method. In essence I'm just watching Macario's "elimination pattern" and keeping an eye out for signals he might be giving just before he has to "go." I'm also focusing on placing him on the potty at key times of the day (i.e. at wake-up times, after a meal or drink, and when I notice his signals).

He has responded really well to the potty and I'm so proud of my little guy for handling this so well. I expected some resistance and got none! I'm really pleased. Though I don't expect him to start asking to use the toilet any time soon, I do hope that getting this started now and doing it in such a calm and low pressure fashion will go a long way in ensuring that he will not rebel later down the road.

Our week in potty training has gone like this:

Monday - Purchased potty seat.

LÄTTSAM Children's Potty (courtesy Ikea)

Tuesday - Intro to potty seat. Let Mac play with it. He sat on it with clothes on. No actual attempts were made.

Wednesday - I put Mac on the seat first thing in the morning and caught a full pee! I was ambitious and wanted to catch a poop after breakfast, but I was distracted from cleaning off his high chair and missed the cue to sit him on the chair! Still, I caught one more pee before I headed off to work!

He was so proud of himself for a job well done and he got to wear his "AWESOME" shirt because he did an awesome job.

Don't mind the sleeping uncle in the background. He was exhausted from the excitement!

Thursday - I caught the "I gotta poop" cue and we had our first poop in the potty!

I've never been so proud of someone for making a poop! *chuckle* Seriously though, I worried that getting him to poop in the potty would be traumatic for him as I've heard that some kids panic when they are pooping, but he was so nonchalant about it that you'd think he's been pooping in the potty his whole life!

Friday (today) - We didn't catch a pee or poop this morning. Macario was more interested in playing with me and running around naked than sitting on the potty. It was fine because he really didn't have to go, but I ran out of time before having to leave for work, so I'll try to work on it tonight after dinner. I'm excited to see how that works out, since I haven't had a lot of opportunities to work on it at night.

So far his "diaper free time" has been only in the morning as that is the time I can put the most focus on it. Hopefully as we get into a solid pattern, we'll work in more periods of "diaper free time".

As I said before, we're not too anxious to get him fully trained, but it's comforting that he seems to be excelling thus far. We're going to continue to keep it low key and not put a lot of pressure on him to become fully trained in a set amount of time. I think we'll both just be happy to transition smoothly from diapers to toilet (without any battles) even if it takes a year of doing a little of both.

Now, if I could just stop referring to the restroom as the "potty" in adult conversation we'd be golden! *chuckle*