Potty time?!?!

I can't believe Emily is 18 months old and already starting to go in the potty! Way back in the day they were always trained BY 18 months, but I think everyone was in cloth diapers back then, too. I figured being in disposables would surely mean we'd be waiting to start until at least 24 months. But this mama is thrilled that we might be moving out of diapers earlier than planned!!!

I have an "on the potty" seat with stair step attached in E's bathroom right now, so that is the only place we've been going so far. She waves her hand in front of her face if she's starting to need to poop. She grabs at her diaper and grunts and squats if she needs to pee. Sometimes I whisk her upstairs and other times she holds it and walks upstairs herself after I ask if she wants to go on the potty. The thing that has amazed me the most so far is that she is actually needing to go by showing me a sign and then holding it for awhile until we make it upstairs, get the diaper off, and sit down.

I had wanted to wait until 1) I got to a store or borrowed an on the floor potty for her to have more independence and to have one downstairs where we spend most of our time and 2) when she wanted to tell me out loud with words that she needs to go. But she's been so interested in going and so relaxed about the process that I've just taken her when she shows me she needs to. She peed 3 times this morning and then we went up to the potty right after lunch today and she went again! I think her Gerber cookies are strong motivators, haha. She refuses to accept a broken/smaller cookie as a reward, so I am going to need to pick a smaller treat as a reward or we will have one sugared-up kiddo on our hands.  She hadn't had a BM yet today and we had beans as part of our lunch, so I was hoping to catch the right timing on the potty for her to really need to have one. She's been peeing on the potty happily all week but had yet to have more than a tiny poop this morning in the potty and was very apprehensive about it. My biggest fear in this process so far has been that she'll freak out about pooping both in the potty and the diaper and then get constipated. But sure enough, she had to go after lunch and plopped a big one right in!! I don't think she was as excited as I was, but hopefully having a successful and not very strained attempt will motivate her to do it again!!

I am still not sure how fast I want to train her out of diapers, especially when going out of the house. But she seems to be taking to it really quickly and easily, so I probably should be willing to try taking it all the way and see what happens. We are in a peaceful, happy stage of life with no trips planned and no baby on the way. It is also nice in a way that it is still winter, because we don't have tons of fun outside activities to distract us from staying at home for awhile to learn.

So proud of my little girl for taking these big steps!!