All Aboard...

Our daughter had not the slightest bit of interest in potty training and we never pushed it. We showed her the toilet, told her to sit on it when she had to go to the bathroom, and then dropped it. For a few months she ignored it completely. Then one day, shortly before her 3rd birthday, she said she wanted big-girl underwear. We went to the store, bought her Princess underwear and from that day forward she has been potty trained. There was no battle, no convincing her, and minus a few accidents at the beginning it has been pretty smooth sailing.

When we had our son we heard all sorts of horror stories about potty training boys...how they will take longer than girls, how they will have more accidents, etc. Personally as long as they are potty trained before they go off to school I don't care how long it takes. I am not really big on forcing them to be potty trained by some personal and arbitrary time line. Frankly I don't want the battle of "You will sit on that potty until you pee." Who does that really train? That being said if my kids show signs of being ready I will certainly do whatever I can to help them be successful.

So, I was a bit taken aback when our 20 month old son started saying, "Potty" each time he has to pee about two months ago. Then he'd go into the bathroom and stand by the potty until we'd take off his diaper, put him on the pot, and he'd pee. He now does this 90 percent of the time...for pee and poop. I don't dare take him out of the house in underwear as I am sure I'd be asking for trouble, nor do I put him to sleep in underwear but when at our house he goes free and so far he has been doing pretty well. I don't know if he is really "potty-training" or not, but whatever it is, he's doing it himself and doing a pretty good job. So, we'll see.

What have your potty training experiences been like? For those of you with a boy and girl, does that seem to make a difference?