Potty training BSM was gloriously easy. Starting around his second birthday, I just sat him on the toilet right before every bath, and as he was bound to, eventually he used the toilet successfully. I made a big deal over it, his pre-bath success rates rose, and when Dikla was out for a few days, I took a day or two off of work and potty-trained the boy over an extended weekend. Easy peesy.
So around FF's second birthday, I started sitting him on the toilet before every bath. He has to make a deposit, and I have yet to make a big deal over his amazing his performance, and 3-year-old nursery starts in two months. A few days ago, his teacher asked me if I've given any thought to potty-training the child (להיגמל in Hebrew, which is the same word as weaning).
I told her what I've done so far, and said that if he shows any interest in using the toilet in gan, please please encourage him, but I don't want to pressure the kid: he'll train when he's ready, and if that means pushing off pre-school for a year, so be it. (After all, he makes the 3-year-nursery cutoff by only two weeks.) Not to mention that we're moving in the second week of July (within Rehovot, but still moving), and training him too close to another life change really isn't the greatest idea.
Last night, FF was rooting around in his dresser for a "different one shirt!" to wear to bed, and he found a pair of underpants. With a bulldozer. I told him that it's not a shirt, it's underpants, and the undies are for him, but only after he uses the toilet instead of a diaper. He asked to sit on the toilet. I told him it's bedtime and we can try tomorrow. He yelled that he wanted to sit on the toilet. I told him it's bedtime and we can try tomorrow. He cried that he wanted to sit on the toilet and wear underpants. I told him it's bedtime and we can try tomorrow, but he's welcome to snuggle his underpants when he goes to sleep.
Which he did. (And happily called them "תחתונים", which is interesting, because I'm fairly certain that, in a rarity for me, I stuck to English for the "underpants" conversation.)
This morning, FF didn't want a diaper. He wanted underpants and to sit on the toilet. I let him wander around the house without a diaper for half-an-hour and sat him on the toilet multiple times with no result, but it was almost time to go, and I was seriously considering staying home with him, because he really can't go to daycare in undies without being at least mostly trained, but I want to encourage this whole "no diaper: underpants" movement. Five minutes before it was time to go, he asked for a diaper. So he went to daycare with a diaper on his bottom and underpants in his pocket, and I told his teacher what's up. Good luck to us all!
