Peter is fast approaching the point where we would consider him potty trained, save for sleeping. He’s been steadily approaching it for 4-5 months now—around July, his ability to detect and alert us when has to pee crossed the 50% mark and in the last month that has shot up to nearly 100% (he’s been reliably pooping in the potty for about a year now).
During this time, we’ve transitioned to underwear around the house and training pants outside, but he rarely has accidents. With underwear, he is even able to fully undress and dress himself and he’ll go into the bathroom, say “I need privacy!” and shut the door (This is just one of the many phrases that he parrots from adults these days).
Truth be told, this is far from what the infant potty training books promised, which was that most children would be out of diapers by 18-24 months. I still don’t know entirely what to make of this. I always took the approach that I wouldn’t expect more from him than he was able to give and, in the end, I think IPT is more about the process than the destination.
By using this process we were able to enable him to develop the skills at his own pace while always including the potty as part of our daily routine. Additionally, we have save literally thousands of soiled diapers that we would have had to wash; I think the choice to use cloth diapers would have been much more difficult to uphold otherwise. I have no doubt that we’ll continue to potty our other children from a young age, and I think it will be much easier the next time around as well.
