My baby sits on the potty but won’t go

EPISODE 243: My baby sits on the potty but won't go

Your little one is more than happy to sit on the potty, but sitting is only half the battle. How can you get her to actually go? Today we're troubleshooting three scenarios involving this very question. This is episode 243, My baby sits on the potty but won't go.

Hello and welcome to the Go Diaper Free podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Cheever, Go Diaper Free certified coach and mama to three kiddos, who all went through EC and potty training at different ages and stages.

Hey there, folks. Before the episode starts, I want to let you know that our third annual Go Diaper Free summer training challenge is happening next week, July 16th through 22nd, 2023. This is a great way to get you started, help you wrap up, or just get you back on track with either EC or potty training. Head to the website godiaperfree.com/summer and register for a class, enter one of our contests to win some awesome gear, get major discounts at both Go Diaper Free and Tiny Undies stores, and take the challenge by signing up for the week-long email series. You'll get five totally-doable tips straight to your inbox to help move you toward a diaper free reality. And don't worry, if you're listening to this later and you missed the challenge week, go to godiaperfree.com/start and pop in your email address to stay up to date and grab some awesome free resources. You'll be the first to know about upcoming challenges, product announcements, and so much more. No spamming, we promise. Hope to see you at this year's summer training challenge. Enjoy the podcast.

Hey there, welcome back. Thanks so much for joining me again today. I'm Nicole Cheever with Go Diaper Free and this is episode 243, My baby sits on the potty but won't go. You can find the transcript and links to anything I mention in today's episode over at godiaperfree.com/243 and make sure to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite player, so you'll get notified anytime we release a new episode, and please leave us a review. We'd love to hear from you, and who knows, it might even be featured here on the podcast.

Today we have three questions from mamas who are having a fine time getting their baby to sit on the potty, but not such a great time getting baby to pee. Let's start with Nicole.
Nicole: Hi. I'm Nicole, and my little girl is almost 18 months. We have another one on the way. Oh, I guess we're from Springville, Utah. We actually started potty training to end EC, and our daughter has been struggling to go pee in the potty. She sits on the potty really well, and she understands that pee and poop goes in the potty. She even cleans it up. And I'm pretty good at knowing when she needs to go, but whenever I put her on, even if she does need to go, I'm not sure what to do about that. So, if you could answer that, that would be great.

Nicole Cheever:
Hey, Nicole. First off, congratulations on baby number two. Take it from someone who did not wrap up my first before my second came along, we absolutely want to get you rolling with finishing up potty training, wrapping up your first baby before that second one arrives. It's going to be so much easier on everybody involved. You'll be in maintenance mode by then, and you'll be able to use these same skills that you use to wrap up your first child if there's any regression. Last week's episode, episode 242 was all about preventing and dealing with any regression that might come along once your second baby arrives, so go ahead and check that out just so you're prepared.

If you are using the wrapping up section from the Go Diaper Free book, I know you said you're using potty training to wrap up EC, so I hope you've moved on to the Tiny Potty Training book. It is really important to make that shift. It's a completely different mindset. We want to get away from you sitting her on the potty, and it needs to be her getting there and her idea. We've got a blossoming toddler now who's hungry for mastery, so we want to be able to give her the tools for that. The Tiny Potty training book is going to have everything you need in there, including an extensive troubleshooting section with a lot of these tips.

Take the emphasis off of sitting, and shift it to her learning and knowing when she has to go. We want to make sure that she can recognize when it's time to go potty. You've been practicing EC a long time. You're really good at this. We need to be handing that baton over to her. You also may think you know, but natural timing could have changed. She could be experimenting. Lots of kids around this age, including mine, start to learn how long they can hold their bladder by holding it so long that they can't anymore. So, it's really important to give that responsibility to her now.

Remember also that pee on the floor is not the end of the world. It doesn't mean that there's been a failure in EC or in potty training. Pee on the floor is an opportunity for everybody to learn. Sometimes it's only your child, sometimes it's only you. Maybe you thought to yourself, “I knew you had to pee,” but they still need to go through that process themselves and realize that that feeling in their body meant it's time to go.

The two main themes at this age range are independence and privacy. As much independence as you can give her, whether you're looking at the Passing the Baton section in the Tiny Potty Training book or the Building Blocks of Potty Independence in the Go Diaper Free book, you're going to want to focus on all of those. Can she get to the potty? Can she get her clothes out of the way? Can she get onto the potty all by herself? We're really focusing on the front end of it, everything that happens before the pee. Everything that happens after, you'll work on as you go. But in order to get her peeing in the potty, we need to make sure she can accomplish all of that by herself, so we practice that when it's not time to go potty. When it's time to go potty, there's too much pressure, and we don't want that. Pressure and potty training, never, ever mix.

The other thing is giving privacy. While we're passing this baton on, we're showing her, "I trust that you can get the pee in the potty. I know you can do it. I know you know how, and I'm going to leave this to you. It's now your job." And part of that is either leaving the room – you can close the door if you have lots of carpet in the area and you want to make sure the pee stays contained somewhere that's easy to clean – you can shut the door and busy yourself with your hair, your makeup, something on your counter or in a drawer, and just really show physically that you have turned your back and you're leaving it all to her. The first 20 times the pee might end up on the floor, but eventually she'll get the message that this is not mom's job anymore, it's hers.

For those of you who are right on this cusp, the Wrapping Up EC MiniCourse is really going to help you as well, especially if you don't have the book or really if you just learn from a more visual format or audio format like this. Of course, the book does come with the audio version, but the Wrapping Up EC MiniCourse is a nice deep dive into all of these skills.

Next up, we have a question from Amanda.
Amanda: My name is Amanda. I live in Iowa, and my baby is nearing six months. I have been dealing with knowing that she has to go, putting her on the potty, and waiting for nothing to happen. Then we need a diaper change 10 minutes later. My question is how do I encourage baby to release into the potty when it is offered?

Nicole Cheever:
Thanks, Amanda. The themes here, even though you're in a very different age range, are going to be pretty similar. We do want to update our natural timing. Ten minutes is a big deal to a little baby, especially a busy little baby who has probably either already mastered crawling or is working very, very hard on it. Make sure you download The Log app or of course, in your resource center that comes with the book, you do have paper copies of the potty log if you prefer pen and paper. But the log app is available for iPhone and Android, and you just click a button and you can log when your baby pees, when they wake up, when they eat, when they poop, and it will spit out a graph for you and an average, so you can get a better sense of their natural timing. They do start to consolidate pees around this age, so even though you may be getting that sense from the timing that you're used to that it's coming up, it is probably in fact stretching just a little bit longer and that little bit longer can make all the difference.

When you offer the potty and nothing happens, you can leave your baby bottomless, put her on your hip and walk around for a minute. Sometimes a change of scenery will get the pee flowing, sometimes bringing her to the sink and turning on the water, or really just moving around on your hip and letting her sit there and realize that her bladder is indeed full. If you're using the mini potty and you're worried that it might just be a little bit uncomfortable, you could always try adding a cozy on to it. We do sell them separately at tinyundies.com. That might make things a little bit more comfy, but if you're going to change the scenery like switching to a seat reducer or bringing the top hat potty back out, just make sure you keep that mini potty. It's great for the car. You're going to want it later. Do not get rid of it, even if you decide to switch up your potty spot.

The Potty Time Master MiniCourse will be helpful for you. That's a deep dive into the four roads to potty time to help you figure out exactly when your baby needs to pee. Maybe you just need a little bit of a refresher on how to identify that, and that will be a big help for you.

Next up, we've got Kate.
Kate: Hi, Andrea. I've been doing EC with my little one since birth, for over a year now, and it seems like we're just devolving. The past four months have been very trying. We went from catching at least half of all poops and pees, to I guess, since she's been more mobile, just a complete lack of cooperation, except when we get up from naps. She just does not signal. I mean, just case in point this morning, we got up and she sat on the potty. She's very content to do so. She'll sit there for a while, we signal, we talk about it. She's 13 months old now. And then she gets up, and crawls away, and then pees somewhere else. I mean, this is just so typical, and I'm getting quite frustrated, especially after being so committed to this for so long. Any tips would be really great.

Nicole Cheever:
Thanks so much, Kate. This is a very common stage for signals to completely go away. She doesn't need you anymore. She's mobile, she knows how to use the potty, why would she tell you that she needs to go? This is actually the time when many of us remove the diapers. And while that seems a little bit counterintuitive because it sounds like you're missing a lot, it actually can be such a critical step to making that transition to potty independence.

For both you and Nicole, I would suggest really limiting your time on the potty. Pee or get off the pot. Potty time sounds like it might be way too much fun. You're talking, you're interacting with her. It sounds like a lot of really great one-on-one mom time. I have an episode about how much play is too much on the potty. That's episode 221, so head over there if you want to get a little bit more information about that. It also sounds like she needs some privacy as well. You can lock yourself in the bathroom like I suggested earlier in the episode, and busy yourself with something else. That may just give her the privacy she needs to realize it's time to go pee, not play.

The other thing is, stop talking about it. She knows. Over talking it shows you are uncertain. You do not have faith that she can do it. Therefore, why would she have any faith that she can do it? Be short, concise. “It's time to go pee, put your pee in the potty.” And then give her that needed privacy.

Going on four months of your potty experience just kind of falling apart sure sounds like a pause to me, so check out the Potty Pause Resolution MiniCourse, and that can really help you. But in the end, I really think it's time to ditch those daytime diapers. So, head to the book, head to the support groups, and let's get you out of those daytime diapers and onto potty independence.

That's it for today. Everyone head to godiaperfree.com/243, and let us know, what is your best tip for getting baby to actually pee in the potty when it's time to go? Next week is the third annual Go Diaper Free Summer Training Challenge. We really, really hope to see you there. Head to godiaperfree.com/summer to register, and let's get everybody out of diapers as soon as we can.

Next week on the podcast, we have a question that came up in one of the Facebook Groups about why we say, “baby can be out of diapers by walking", and what the significance of that is. We will be talking about what age your child can be out of diapers by. I hope to see you then. Thanks for joining me. I'm Nicole Cheever with Go Diaper Free. We'll see you next time.

Want to catch your first pee today? Grab Andrea's free easy start guide and do just that. It's only one page, and it will change your world. Get it at godiaperfree.com/start. We'll see you next time.