Potty Trained At 9 Months Old

I haven't had to change a poopy diaper in over 11 months- Whoo Hoo!!!!!!!! Arabella is 20 months old now and started signing to me that she needed to go poopy at about 9 months old. She has just now started doing almost all of her tee-tees on the potty. She will get distracted and have an accident but a little tee-tee never hurt anyone. I do still put a diaper on in public because she is very shy about people knowing she has to use the bathroom. She is so shy she likes to cover herself with the shower curtain while she is going!  She gets it honestly.I had heard about Elimination Communication when Arabella was about 4 months old. It sounded like a great idea, but I also thought it might be a little stressful for me and her. I imagined the mad rush to make it to the potty every time she got ready to go. I love the communication part though. So I thought I would wait until she can crawl or walk to the potty herself. At about 7.5 months old I started letting her go diaper free. Every time she would go I would do the sign for toilet. Luckily we have tile or wood floor (easy clean up). I liked the idea of the diaper free because she could see and feel what was going on and then relate it to the sign. After about a month, she really got the hang of it and could tell me when she needed to go poopy. I decided to use our big toilet with a seat on it because she could understand what we were doing. I thought if she just saw a little plastic thing on the floor she would think it was a toy. She now has a potty that we move from room to room so she can get to it quickly.  Arabella is so used to me cheering for her to go potty that she now cheers for me when I tee-tee!

You make the sign for toilet by making a fist and putting your thumb in between your pointer finger and you middle finger. You then wave it back and forth. Arabella is showing you her version here. Most of the time she just made a fist and waved it back and forth.

I think patience and consistency is key.  I was very consistent with watching for her signs of when she needed to go but I never got mad or showed frustration when she didn't.  All of the patients it does take is SOOOO worth it! 

Good luck!

-Tara