Can an 8 week old baby really be potty trained for poos? Our son was.

Yes really? We aren’t lying when we say our second child (a boy) was potty trained for poos at 8 weeks.

However, this is not the full story…

How did we get our 8 week old potty trained for poos?

In short, we started early. We potty trained our kids from a week or so old. Naturally, we were extremely careful to support our babies’ necks and body because when they are really young they are unable to support themselves.

But starting early, is the key. Babies learn to go to the toilet in nappies.

Crazy I know, but we haven’t evolved to automatically poo and wee in nappies (diapers). So, if you manage to get your baby to learn to poo and wee on the potty instead of a nappy, soiling a nappy seems more alien than going on the potty.

Yes, you may doubt this, but trust us on this. It happened with our kids and you can do it too.

Also, if you don’t start potty training until the child is two and half years old, then that learned behaviour (soiling nappies) is much harder to break, thus making potty training more difficult than it needs to be.

Setback at 12 months

All was plain sailing until our son started nursery (daycare) at 12 months old. Now I’m not here to complain about nurseries and nursery staff, who do an amazing job caring for our kids, day in and day out.

But our son started to learn to go in his nappy. We still were potty training at home, but he wasn’t going on the potty at nursery.

This is of no fault of staff and we didn’t ask them to put our son on the potty. We appreciate how hard it is for nursery staff to put kids on the potty when they are looking after so many other children.

It was a step backwards and at times our son was reluctant to go on the potty.

When he was adamant he didn’t want to go on the potty we took a break from putting him on for a few days. We then tried again after a rest and he was more receptive to going back on. He may not have done anything on the potty, but we were trying to get him back into routine.

Going backwards

For the next 6-8 months, we were changing more pooey nappies than we did in our son’s first year. It was frustrating, but we understood what was happening.

We persevered with putting our son on the potty, whenever we changed him to ensure that he still had the connection that poos and wees should be in the potty.

Gradually, we started to ‘catch’ more poos and wees on the potty. Over time we went from 0% for a few weeks to 4 in 10 being caught.

Not all is lost

Although, you might think you lost all of that hard work. Trust me you don’t. By 18 months, we were catching about 75% of poos in the potty, when our son was with us.

We also noticed that he was starting to wait to poo to when he got home as he knew he would be going on the potty after nursery. There were still a few ‘misses’ at nursery, but he did get back into the rhythm.

And at the at the age of 2 and 3 months, our son was fully potty trained (wees and poos).

But along the way we were still using fewer nappies than if we weren't potty training. This is because we were able to 'catch' some of the wees and poos on the potty, so his nappy could be used for longer as it was clean when we put him on the potty.

What does this mean for you?

Every child is different and you can do your best potty training like we did, but there will be obstacles and setbacks along the way.

However, from our experience, putting your child on the potty after they have soiled a nappy does pay dividends.

We know many children are in nursery as parents have to work and this can change the routine of children.

Even if that happens, persevere with the training as you will find your child transitions from nappies to pants far faster and quicker than they would if you just decided to potty train over the summer when your child is two.