Score: Ella-1, Potty-0

I would venture to say that any parent would prefer their child be potty trained sooner rather than later. I, like most parents, would fall into the "sooner" category. While I have not pushed the issue because I don't want to be potty training for 9 months (which they say is what happens when you start too early), I am trying to get her comfortable with sitting on the potty. After all, she did "do" this (by total accident I'm sure) at 15 months old...

I've been reading, researching, and asking other moms for a while about this subject. I came across this article on BabyCenter that had some reasonable information, so I thought I'd give it a try.

"You'll have to plan on being home bound for a few days. When beginning the training process, consider adding training pants — extra-thick cloth or disposables that pull on like underwear — to your routine. They'll allow your toddler to undress for the potty on her own, which is a critical step toward becoming completely potty-trained.While cloth training pants are less convenient than disposable pull-ups, many parents say they work better because your toddler can really feel when she pees or poops in them. Whichever option you choose, introduce them gradually — probably for a few hours at a time — and stick with diapers at night for the time being."

Last week we had some of our normal activities cancelled, so we were going to be at home a couple more days than normal. I decided I would just give the whole training pants a try during these days. I took the advice on the cloth training pants. I also took the advice on not wearing pants for easy access. She liked the "paints" (panties) and didn't seemed affected by them...

...and neither were her bathroom habits. She didn't seem to notice the lack of a diaper and wet through all 3 pair before lunch. Not only that, but she didn't care that she was wet and stayed that way until I checked her or saw the evidence (...on the floor...).

So, I marked that experience as a loss and suppose we'll resume this fun at a later date.