sporadic diaper-free times - good, or confusing?

[lmh2402]

DD - newly 2 - has been spending an hour or two a day without a diaper on

we're just too on-the-go right now to have her diaper-free all day b/c we're not home all day

she's been pretty good with pee - only one accident

but she's had a couple of poop accidents. on top of this, she seems fearful of pooping on the potty - she actually used to poop on the potty pretty often, but that changed several months ago and now she never does.

so, am i making things worse by having her without a diaper, but only some of the time? is it more confusing?

or is there a chance that it's somewhat helpful?

has anyone's DC trained this way, slowly over time?

thanks

[MommyAllison]

One of my DDs ended up PTing this way. She had a persistant diaper rash and the pedi suggested naked time. We'd do an hour here and there (basically until there was an accident, or until I was nervous there would be an accident) and after a month or two, I realized she was having longer periods of dry time. We brought out the potty chair and continued on, super low key, just letting her lead, and she did end up potty training herself. She was around 18 months at the time, and did continue to have accidents for awhile. I wouldn't have chosen to PT so early, but in her case, the diapers were causing major rash problems and naked time was the only thing that worked - so we PT accidentally.

[lmh2402]

One of my DDs ended up PTing this way. She had a persistant diaper rash and the pedi suggested naked time. We'd do an hour here and there (basically until there was an accident, or until I was nervous there would be an accident) and after a month or two, I realized she was having longer periods of dry time. We brought out the potty chair and continued on, super low key, just letting her lead, and she did end up potty training herself. She was around 18 months at the time, and did continue to have accidents for awhile. I wouldn't have chosen to PT so early, but in her case, the diapers were causing major rash problems and naked time was the only thing that worked - so we PT accidentally.

interesting, thanks Allison. DD also has frequent, quite terrible diaper rash. so that's one of my biggest reasons to want to train her - so we can stop dealing with the terrible rashes.

[Liziz]

This sounds really similar to my DD. We bought her a potty chair around 18 months, because she was showing interest. We did absolutely nothing other than put it in the bathroom, and if she asked to go on it, we helped her, and of course celebrated. She was doing well going occasionally, and even did a few poops -- and then she went through a phase just before she turned 2 where she also seemed really upset/afraid of the concept of pooping on the potty, and had no interest in peeing either. After a month or two, she started to have interest in peeing again -- we kept her in a diaper almost all the time (kind of the same reason -- it was just too hard to stay home/near a potty long enough to not), but right after she went to the bathroom, we'd usually let her wear undies until we next needed to leave the house. We just kept going like that and she kept getting more and more consistent about asking to go to the potty (when she was wearing her diaper) -- we switched to letting her wear undies out and about by accident, because we just forgot to change her one day before we left. It never seemed an issue for her that we switched back and forth between diapers and undies -- we just always talked about "you're a big girl now, diapers aren't for pee-pee any more, only the potty". We never made it an issue if she did get her diaper wet though -- just changed her and nicely reminded her to tell us next time and we'd bring her to the potty. I did get pull-ups so they'd seem "different"/more like undies than diapers -- but DD hated them for some reason and would request diapers instead. Her potty training has been a very gradual process -- she's 2 1/2 this month, and it was just this week that we moved to no diapers at night, so she's had about a 6-month potty training process where she'd be in diapers sometimes and undies other times. I think some kids need that "all at once" that people talk about, but I just don't think that would have worked well with DD. So if yours seems to be doing fine with the sometimes on, sometimes off, then go with it! Good luck!