going potty...

i'm sure attie is not going to be too happy about this post when she reads it later... but i want to blog about everything she does so here goes...

as many of you know, i have been "infant" potty training attie since she was just a few months old. basically, instead of going potty in her diaper, i remove it and place her over the toilet to do her business several times a day, and i just flush the stinkiness away! (training was a long process, but that's a story for another day, email me if you're curious or interested). it has been a huge success and i would say ever since she was about 7 or 8 months old, she has pooed in the toilet 90%+ of the time (she is now almost 14 months old). for the mommies and daddies out there, you know what an awful chore it is to change a poopie diaper, so training attie to go potty in the toilet has been a very worthwhile task. of course attie is still too young to actually tell me when she feels the urge to go, so she always has a diaper on, just in case she needs to go between toilet breaks.

4 months old

every night, our bedtime routine consists of me putting attie on the toilet so she can go potty one last time before bed. then i give her a bath, and after drying her off and getting her dressed, i turn down all the lights and give her a bottle (which btw, i am trying to wean her off of but it's so hard because it has now become part of the routine). finally, after the bottle, i rock her, sing a few songs, and then put her into her crib to fall asleep. from beginning to end, this process usually takes about 25-30 minutes.

i wanted to share something that happened today that surprised me before attie went to bed. at the end of our usual routine, attie finished her bottle, but instead of relaxing in my arms and burying her face into me like she usually does, she sat up, pointed towards the bathroom, and showed me the sign that she wanted to go potty (see post below to read about her baby sign language). at first i didn't believe her, since she just went pee right before her bath, but she insisted so i carried her over, asked her again if she wanted to go potty while pointing to the toilet, and she pointed too and nodded her head 'yes'. i took off her sleep sack, her pjs, and her clean, new diaper, put her on the toilet, and guess what? yup - she went pee again!!!

i am so impressed and excited that she actually knows to tell me that she needs to go to the bathroom, and she even waited until i placed her on the toilet to go! wonder if she'll actually do it again? here she is, reading on the toilet- haha..

12 1/2 months old