Thursday, July 14, 2011

Sniff Sniff Sniff

Bradley and I are always working on our communication skills.
He just walked up to me, grabbed his diaper, and started rapidly "sniffing" through his nose...

Hmm, I'm not very good at reading "Bradley signals" but I'm pretty sure he is trying to communicate something to me.


A few months ago I started getting all these emails about potty training tips for an 18 mo old. I ignored most of them because I thought 18 months was way too early. But one caught my eye, "your toddler may be ready for potty training if he tells you he has a dirty diaper." It suddenly clicked in my head why Bradley will randomly walk around holding his diaper. I really thought he was getting a urinary infection.

So we started rewarding this behavior with M&Ms! Then two months went by and he stopped doing it. A week before our vacation he started doing it again!! So we started up with the M&Ms again and kept it going on vacation. The Grandparents thought it was so cute and were way more excited that Brad would get an M&M than he was, which I think just reinforced the idea to him. I'm pretty sure he mostly gets that poop = M&Ms. Somehow the sniffing was added for clarification.

I know what you are thinking... Won't he just start saying he has a dirty diaper just to get an M&M? Probably, but we aren't there yet. We aren't even to an M&M ever day. Some days are great and he totally recognizes when he Went. Other days he is still completely oblivious.

1 comment:

Usandthings said...

18 months is not too early. I started at 18 months with Nora just sitting on the potty every day. Eventually by accident, she went while she was sitting and I made a huge deal. Huge. We kept this up and she was out of diapers (nights too) a week after she turned 2.

But, then again, I started at 18 months with Lillian, and she wasn't out of diapers until 3.5. The difference, I think, was that I took a really hard line with Nora. I knew she could go in the toilet, so I would refuse to give her a diaper- I told her she could pee on the ground or in the toilet and it was her choice. With Lillian, I would get irritated if she peed on the ground and I would just put her back in diapers so I didn't have to clean up pee. With Nora, I just assumed I'd be cleaning up pee for a year, but it only took a few months.

Good luck!